ericchri

Bring them up (if they're healthy). I can't agree with the premise more. I thought they would and should both be up this year so I'm not going to look at an injury-filled season as any reason to change that thought. If they spend a couple months in the minors fine, but they need to play in the majors to understand playing in the majors. Both have proved in their time in the minors they're better than the other guys they're playing with/against, let them figure out what it's like playing with others their skill level. I get it, there are "obvious" reasons to not start in the majors, but I think (hope) Buxton and Sano are just plain good enough to not worry about it. They need these guys on the team to really understand the team's dynamic anyway, since their presence has a massive effect on who else plays and where. I say the sooner the better.

You couldn't really take only a hitter's specific results with a certain catcher behind the plate into account when a hitter has a "feeling" about the catcher, though. He's watching how his whole team is doing against that guy, and if he's watching from on-deck, or the dugout and seeing close pitches go for lots of strikes in those games he's taking that into his at-bat later knowing extra strikes are getting called. I think that would somewhat explain why he hates hitting with Molina behind the plate, but actually has decent results overall.

I think Martinez would be my first choice. Working for Maddon for a few years is a great place to start with for a new Twins manager. I would be OK with Mientkiewicz. Others on the list seem fine as well. I don't want Steinbach. That seems like perpetuating the "Twins Way" to me, nothing about him indicates anything but old school and same old same old. Ozzie seems like a disaster waiting to happen. He had that little bromance going with Twins fans for a while which made him seem charming, but his personality seemed to get out of control eventually. Once upon a time he would've seemed like the obvious choice, but that was probably 10 years ago. I don't doubt Jake Mauer would theoretically make a great candidate and manager, but I think it would be a PR disaster for this team right now. Joe is massively polarizing already, why would you want to double down on that? It might not be fair to Jake, but we all know life isn't always fair.

This notion continues to puzzle me. I don't disagree that on paper Mauer looks athletic enough to be an adequate outfielder. But reality says that could very well not be the case. Mauer is 31 with some injury history and 6'5" tall. He's played one emergency game in the outfield in his career? I would expect a steady dose of Mauer in the outfield to be someone who can't read the ball well off the bat, doesn't take good routes to the ball, and then struggles to pick the ball up off the ground well when he's chasing it around because he's so big and likely losing his athleticism rapidly due to age and injury history. And I really don't want to see him crashing into any walls risking another concussion. He's not on my list of options to improve the outfield defense. It's not a long-term solution and if you're making that move it has to be done right away so he spends the entire offseason preparing for it. I'd be incredibly surprised if they made that move after indicating he was our 1B moving forward. I'm sure Mauer could play the outfield, I just doubt he'd actually make the defense any better. I think I've even advocated for him in the OF in the past, but at this point I don't find it a good idea.

Anthony Castrovince from "Sports on Earth" a secret Twins Daily reader? http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/94257452/ron-gardenhire-twins-transition-13th-season

We wouldn't include Duensing in the trade, so it's only Ryu, not Kershaw.

Maybe instead of everyone calling for FA left fielders or moving Mauer out there it's time to consider if that's where Sano belongs?

I'm not exactly disagreeing with you, but isn't that sort of what you'd expect to see from anybody who posts a good offensive season? Some months where they have better numbers from the bounces going right, and some where they don't? I would find it very strange to post month after month of numbers that conform to standards. Mostly I find his ability to post multiple entire months worth of good hitting (on either side of a couple poor-to-average months) somewhat encouraging. He didn't tailspin out of the season, he came out of it and settled into decent hitting again. I don't have high expectations for him, per se, but I don't find it too far-fetched to see him being capable of basically league average offense and defense for a SS. If somebody can push him out, great, but the stability is nice. I'm not troubled by seeing EE at short, and I certainly haven't been able to say that about the guy who's been manning the position at any given moment much over the last few years.

Great news!

I kind of expected that to be the answer, honestly. Guess it's time for me to really give Firefox a shot. I was an Opera user for something like 15 years or so, but they abandoned their awesome homegrown browser and I really dislike the new one they have now, which forced me to give something else a try. I went with IE for simplicity due to having a couple in-house apps which were built for IE compatibility. Thanks for the answer!

In trying to just "Reply to this topic," I find I am unable to do simple copy-cut-paste operations in the window as I'm typing in text, with the usual Ctrl-c, Ctrl-x, Ctrl-v. Actually, as I'm doing the same thing to try and post this comment, I now discover that I can somewhat inconsistently Cut some text with Ctrl-x, but it has yet to ever paste that text back in with a Ctrl-v no matter how often I try. The little icons at the top of the text window which have Copy, Paste, Paste as Plain Text, and Paste from Word occasionally pop up a warning window asking if I want to allow the browser access to my computer's clipboard (which I'm not necessarily worried about, just puzzled it ever gets to that extreme).

Both lefties on that list showed horrible with both (though so did Gibson and Pelfrey). I'd be curious to see Thielbar, just as an extra data point, though I honestly doubt you could determine anything by that.

Interesting to see how well Kepler and Harrison are stacking up in these. The sudden onrush of decent pitching prospects in our system has seemed to push those two a little into the afterthoughts category with a lot of us.

Start the trade Dozier to make room for Polanco chants now?

Matt Batts, and he's a pitcher? Ah, the missed opportunities.

Nice bit of research. Also interesting, the biggest success story of the bunch is from Colombia, not Venezuela or the DR where most of the big-namers are from.

That list of the under 23 hitters... It's easy to forget how really, really good Grady Sizemore was. Kudos for name-dropping Yokozuna and making me cringe over the fact that I even knew who he was.

I recently started responding to a forum post, realized my post was growing ever-larger and mostly revolved around the topic of, "I think this guy will be better, but this guy, not so much...", and realized I was heading down the exact same path which caused me to create a questionable blog last year. And what's the best thing to do with questionable blogs? Pile on more, of course, making it into a "yearly" questionable blog topic (which assumes I may remember in future years). As with last year's 'The Completely Arbitrary +/- System to Predict "Something" About the Twins', http://twinsdaily.com/entry.php/2534-The-Completely-Arbitrary-System-to-Predict-quot-Something-quot-About-the-Twins, I need to offer the following statement: The biggest assumption being made in this is one player manning the position for the majority of the season, which of course completely nullifies most of the value from predicting anyway. Many players will suffer injuries, many will be replaced/traded mid-season, and various other things can happen to make that a truly horrible assumption. But it's easier than the alternative, and therefore is perfect for my arbitrary system. Last year's post turned out to be incredibly (along the lines of, "... broadside of a barn") accurate, so I guess I'm ready to make arbitrary and mostly unsupportable "predictions" about the Twins upcoming season to prove why I shouldn't write blogs. Here goes... Left Field: Umm, who played LF for us last year? I had to check baseball-reference on this, and it shows Willingham played 72 games there, so I guess he was our primary left fielder even though that's less than half a season. The rest were covered by Clete Thomas, Darin Mastroianni, Chris Herrmann, Ryan Doumit, Oswaldo Arcia, Wilkin Ramirez, and even Eduardo Escobar. Interestingly, Chris Parmelee didn't get any time in left even with that motley collection of others who did. But wait, I'm supposed to be predicting how this year's player will be compared to last year's, not waxing nostalgic over the amazing talent displayed last year. So, yeah, LF this year will be Josh Willingham, I guess. He'll hopefully be healthy this year and able to produce, I predict (WAG, whatever) better offense and comparable defense (puke) to last year. Offense+, Defense=. Center Field: Hmmm, left field already sent shivers down my spine and now I get to consider what we ran out into center field last year. It's starting to look like Aaron Hicks will get the job again this year, but of course he managed to lose it last year. Regardless, I don't want to think about who else played large numbers of games in CF last year not named Hicks or Presley. I think Hicks will put last year behind him and settle into the role adequately this year. His defense started out shaky but got better, including some highlight grabs and throws. I think he'll be more consistently good this year, and he's better than the guys who replaced him so Defense is improved. Offense, hopefully it can't help but be improved. Offense+, Defense+. Right Field: Bleh, this blog is now reminding me of how incredibly awful our outfield was last year. I mean, shouldn't outfield be one of the easier positions to be able to fill with borderline competent players. How was ours so consistently awful? Parmelee couldn't hit but played okay defense, Arcia hit okay but played terrible defense, backup catchers Ryan Doumit and Chris Herrmann got a lot of games in RF, just, uggh. Arcia gets the job this year. He should be better offensively, but how does a full season of him compare to what we had last year defensively? My guess is a wash, Parmelee didn't get enough games there for the defense to be significantly downgraded over a healthy heaping of Arcia and Doumit last year. Offense+, Defense=. Third Base: Trevor Plouffe takes over from Trevor Plouffe. Much as I hope we see more of June 2012's "Good Trevor", I suspect we're going to see lots of the usual mediocre Trevor. In the words of Miguel Sano, er make that Brad Swanson, "Ligaments are stupid." Offense=, Defense=. Shortstop: I guess we're in for more Pedro Florimon. I thought he'd play his way out of the majors last year, but he sure showed me, didn't he (.611 OPS)? He was better on offense and defense than I expected, but I still want someone who can legitimately hit to get this job. It looks like I'll be waiting a while for a real solution here. I don't see much reason to believe we'll see anything different from Florimon this year. Offense=, Defense=. Second Base: Finally, this blog post was getting depressing, I can finally feel happy about something. I can feel happy, right? June-September Brian Dozier is the real one, right, not the guy we saw before that? One of very few hunches my ever-expanding gut has had that hopefully turned out correct, Dozier was pretty good last year. I doubt his defense can be better than last year, honestly, but hopefully his bat is better over the course of a full season. Offense+, Defense=. First Base: We replaced a previously-concussed former MVP with a previously-concussed former MVP. Hopefully the current version isn't hampered by post-concussion problems. I think Mauer has the potential to be pretty good defensively, but I was always a fan of Morneau's, so I'm guessing the defense gets a little worse this year with Mauer. He's capable of being good, but he needs more time there to get fully comfortable with it. Offensively, it's a pretty good upgrade, though. I wanted to go with a double-bump for the offense from Morneau to Mauer, but Morneau was actually one of our better hitters last year, sad as that is, and I couldn't quite do it, not knowing if Mauer will have any concussion issues. I hope he doesn't, and I hope my offensive predicition is too light. Offense+, Defense-. Catcher: Errr, I said I'm predicting one player with the majority of the time at the position for the season, didn't I? Well, good thing this system is fake and I can change it whenever the heck I want to. I predict a relative 50-50 split for Kurt Suzuki and Josmil Pinto this year, slanted for Suzuki early and Pinto late. Now, compared to Mauer, yeah, this won't be pretty. Offense--(I figured there'd be a double somewhere), Defense-. Designated Hitter: Well, DH was bad last year. Doumit was sort of the DH, I guess, but I don't think anyone could really be considered the DH last year. Pretty much everybody who was on the roster got a chance to DH last year, I think. I could have sworn I saw Mike Pelfrey lobbying for the chance at one point, thinking he could do it as well as anybody else who did. Since I already broke my own rule at catcher, I can now calmly put Chris Colabello and Chris Parmelee in at DH this year. Jason Kubel should have been able to grab this job, and instead we get a platoon of AAA mashers that can't hit in the majors. Parmelee will probably get more AB's, being a lefty hitter. Boy do I hope he swings his bat instead of trying to be Joe Mauer. I get angry when Mauer stares at cookies, and he has a career .323/.405/.468/.873 batting line, Parmelee needs to swing at that stuff. I'm not sure we got any better or worse here, and that frightens me. Offense=. Bench: Do we actually have a bench? Backup infielder (must be able to play short, hitting optional), backup outfielder (must be able to play center, hitting optional), backup catcher (hitting optional). Last year's was terrible, this year's will hold up the standard. Wash. Bullpen: Last year's was pretty good overall, but then bullpens are pretty much unpredictable. I like our chances for this year's to remain a little above-average. Wash. Starters: As last time, I use a scale to rate the starters as a whole: Putrid Bad Mediocre Average Fairly Good Good Excellent I was tempted to add a couple more layers, as I didn't think last year's rotation could get worse than 2012's Putrid, but boy did they try to prove me wrong. I'll try to adhere to at least one standard in my system, and pretend last year's rotation ranked in at Putrid. I learned my lesson though, and I'm only predicting the same improvement I did last year, up to mediocre. If we'd made the same offseason additions before last year as we did this year I would have predicted we'd make it to average, but I should never overestimate our Twins' ability to have horrible starting pitching. Thus an automatic downgrade by one rank over what I think they should be. So, that all added up to +4. As we established last year, every plus of my prediction leads to another 6 wins, thus the reason last year's Twins won 90 games exactly as predicted... Hmmm, that seems familiar. Wait, that's the same rank I had last year. This system is clearly bogus. Somebody shut this guy up.

Aren't outfielders the second most common concussion candidates after catcher? I doubt he's ever going out there, either.

I've been tossing this idea around in my head a bit as I start getting excited for the upcoming season. We have lots of highly rated prospects, lots of depth, lots of unknowns. I sat back a little and tried to figure out who I was actually most interested in seeing how they performed this year. This isn't a Top 10 prospects list, smarter people than me have already done those. I'm assuming Buxton will dominate. I'm interested in that, certainly. But he's not the guy I'm most interested in finding out something about, I suspect we already know most of what we need to know about him, with him it's hopefully just about waiting. But we have lots of guys I really hope to get a better feel for this year as we hopefully start a large-scale roll over to prospects this year and next. #1: Danny Santana - we've heard glimmers about his defensive prowess and his hitting looks to have some potential. Is he the next Pedro Florimon, or can he be a competent two-way starting shortstop for the next half-dozen years? I think I want the answer to this more than anything else this year. #2: Stuart Turner - I'm not sure exactly why, but I'm really curious about him. He seems like he might be the perfect match for Pinto. A great-defense, mediocre hitting catcher to match up with the good-hitting, mediocre-defense (hopefully better, jury's still out) Pinto. I don't know if he will, but if he shows signs of being able to hit a little, I expect to see him move quickly. #3: Mason Melotakis - There's some lefty starters that look to have more potential, probably, but I still have some high hopes for him. He hasn't had much time as a starter yet, I'm curious how he'll perform in a second year of full-season ball as a starter. An eventual move back to the pen wouldn't be a shocker, but I'm hoping for good results this year to make that a failsafe, not a given. #4: Adam Brett Walker - His power is just so intriguing. Can he hit a breaking ball? I don't know what the overall reports on his defense are, but in my sample size of one (the Cedar Rapids game which was on FSN) he looked pretty athletic, and his stolen base success indicates someone with more going for him than just a powerful swing. He'll presumably be in a pitcher's league in Ft. Myers this year, we should finally start getting a better idea of how he may progress. #5: Ryan Eades - We saw barely anything from him last year, as he threw only a handful of mediocre innings. Where will he pitch? Does he look like he can be a major leaguer some day? I think he's almost completely forgotten about amongst our starters, but if he turns out to be good how awesome would that be? He was a really good starter for a really good team in a really good college baseball conference. Surely he has something going for him? #6: Trevor May - Another of the almost forgotten pitchers. Many seem to already be writing him off as a starter. His numbers didn't get a lot better in a second AA season, but they did improve in almost every category, even if it was small. He still seems like a guy who could be a #3/#4 pitcher for a lot of years, with flashes of being better. Not everybody will be an ace, but he still has a lot of the tools to be pretty good. #7: Jorge Polanco - Will he actually get a full season of playing SS, or will he just fill in when somebody else isn't playing there? Can he actually man the position adequately? I'd be very much on board with a great-hitting, average-defense SS. Can he be that guy? Will he have to move back to 2nd, and if so will he be better than Dozier or Rosario? #8: Stephen Gonsalves/Lewis Thorpe - cheating a bit here. Couldn't decide which of the two I'm most curious about, but high-upside lefty starters presumably playing above the rookie leagues are definitely guys to pay attention to. #9: Alex Wimmers - Will he ever manage anything? A former #1 pick who's barely even pitched professionally. Almost more of a human interest curiosity than a baseball one at this point, but one I'm really wondering about. #10: Amaurys Minier - Is he the next highly-rated International signing to start making waves in the Twins system? He seemed pretty inconsistent this last season (injuries?), but I hope to have a better idea of what his potential might be after this year.

I like it. I've been following your lists all along, and not necessarily agreeing everywhere doesn't change my admiration for the effort you put into this. I'll admit to having had a bit of curiosity if you would indeed put Sano first, as all along you seemed to have been evaluating a little differently than the common thinking appears to have been. I'll also admit to a bit of agreement on Sano in that if he truly meets his potential, he could definitely be an amazing player, in a way the Buxton hype-machine seems to have almost pushed by the wayside. Sano is the #3 overall prospect on many lists, and while Buxton might be #1, Sano has the potential to be just as game-changing. Kudos!

If he pulled a Dozier and made our SS spot in the lineup suddenly look acceptable as opposed to really bad, and could pull that off while drawing a wash in the defensive department with Florimon, that would be a good catalyst to a turnaround for the Twins. Hoping this analysis works out to come true. Thanks!

My argument is more along the lines of why did Sano have to move away from short before getting a chance to play short? What if he was actually an adequate defensive shortstop? This isn't a real rating system, obviously, but if we take your example of Florimon (2 offense, 9 defense) and Sano (9 offense, 2 defense) and call it a wash numberwise, having Sano at SS might still be a preferable option as it means Harrison plays third instead of Florimon playing short. All hypothetical, of course, but if you assume similar offense and defense from Sano at either short or 3rd and Harrison can put up a 7 offense, 5 defense at 3rd, he inherently becomes "more valuable" than Florimon, 12-11 (unless we do the whole WAR positional adjustment thing, which seems silly for a fictional system). But he doesn't even play if Sano is at 3rd. Nowhere did I ever intend to suggest Harrison could play SS, this was all predicated on considering Sano as a possibility to play short. I also think it more likely that on this potential rating system that you get a 2 offense, 9 defense for the Florimon equivalent, but probably more like a 9 offense, 4 defense from Sano at SS. Not great defense theoretically, depending on what that scale actually means, but he's "better" statistically, rating 13 to Florimon's 11. It's kind of a "you can live with his defense as it makes the team much better for him to play shortstop" thing. Sort of like Jeter.

With all the talk of late as to who might be our "shortstop of the future", one thought keeps popping back into my head. It's a thought that probably has about as much chance of happening as my winning the lottery twice in my lifetime (and since I haven't won it once yet, unfortunately...) but I can't shake it. Thinking about it a little more has caused me to think about a few other things, like what you want in a shortstop, not just who should be playing the position. I'll start with the ridiculous notion first, so everyone can laugh and skip on to the more useful information located elsewhere on the site. Our shortstop of the future should be: Miguel Sano. First off, where this idea comes from: A quote from Terry Ryan. I don't feel like digging up the exact quote at the moment, but I don't think it's so controversial that anybody is going to challenge it. Essentially it was a quote from Ryan about Sano saying in effect, "he still thinks he should be playing shortstop." And that part of me that wonders about things like this got rolling. Actually that wasn't exactly the foundation for the idea, as I've wondered a bit about moving shortstops to third base previously, but this finally made me interested enough to formalize ideas worthy of putting down in print. A positional glance at what the Twins have coming up through the farm shows a large number of extremeley intriguing prospects, covering most every position except shortstop. Yes, we do have a few names attached to the position, but none of them are making the kind of noise many of our other positional prospects are. Niko Goodrum may have the highest ceiling of the group, but he's more raw athleticism than polished product at the moment. Jorge Polanco looks to be a decent hitter, but may not have the arm you'd want to be the full-time shortstop. Levi Michael was once listed as the best defensive infielder the Twins have (BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Rankings: Organization Top 10 Prospects: 2013 Minnesota Twins Top 10 Prospects), but his hitting has never been very impressive nor consistent. Danny Santana has shown flashes of talent but not much consistency. James Beresford is great defensively but has no power to speak of. Any of them might be fine, but none seems to have "future All-Star" vibes. We have more potentially great outfielders than we know what to do with. 2B has Eddie Rosario looking the part, and Polanco profiles a little better there than SS. 1B has Kennys Vargas and Dalton Hicks in addition to being a potential fallback for hitters who struggle in the field. Catcher has Josmil Pinto currently ripping up his league and Joe Mauer should still have a few more good years in him. Sano currently plays 3B, as does Travis Harrison and now Amaurys Minier, all looking to be plus (likely even better) bats. So, we have a potential surplus of really good bats at 3B. How did that happen? Because we decided that Miguel Sano was going to outgrow the SS position. I couldn't help looking at that and thinking, "Why?" I'll grant that he is going to be a big man, that's obvious. What is it about being large that inherently means he should move to a new position before even getting to try, though? Cal Ripken played the position at a solidly-built 6'4". Alex Rodriguez was a much better defensive shortstop at a muscular 6'3" than Derek Jeter but Jeter got to keep his spot anyway, moving A-Rod to 3rd. Heck, Jeter (6'3") has always been more "shortstop who can hit" than good defender, undeserved gold glove awards aside. Troy Tulowitzki is listed at 6'3", 215 lbs. Why could they do it but others can't? When I think about traits you want in a SS or 3B, a strong arm is obvious, and is possessed by Sano already. In fact he's believed to have an incredible arm, easily good enough for either position. That's part of why Cal Ripken could play the position, he could play a half-step deeper and gun people out anyway. Couldn't Miguel Sano do that as well? Okay, what other traits do you want in your SS? Range, quickness, agility? Well, the range thing is hard to quantify as I'm not a professional scout, nor am I even an amateur scout who watches Sano play. I just read about him on the internet. Judging range gets back to the notion of arm strength somewhat, though. The deeper you play, the more range you have, you get that extra fraction of a second to move to the ball by playing deeper. Quickness? Again, I'm not a professional scout, but I can read boxscores to see that Sano hits triples and steals bases. He's not the second coming of Jim Thome. Agility? Sure, a big guy is going to suffer in that category, but the SS is rarely going to make acrobatic plays to convert double plays, that falls more on the 2B to make the crazy turn-and-throws as they come across the bag and have to throw back to first. And how many people really want to go full out in a takeout slide at a big guy who might take their head off with a throw? With 3B it seems to me like the primary trait you want after arm strength (maybe even before) is fast reflexes. You're closer to the plate, the ball is usually hit a touch harder as it's being pulled more (by righties), the ball just gets on you much faster at third than at short. So to be good at 3rd, you want someone with fast reflexes. Wouldn't you want to determine what kind of reflexes someone has first before making that switch? It's easy to say, "well, he could manage shortstop where only the best fielders can play, he can manage 3rd," but is that really true? What if the guy managed short by having good positioning and a strong arm, not by having lightning reflexes? And wouldn't a large frame be just as likely to struggle with the fast reflexes needed to play 3rd as they would to have the range needed to play short? Sure, with a strong arm, he can play deeper to give himself more time, but that's exactly what he'd be doing to play short, too. I find myself wondering if it isn't an issue where the positional bias is actually working incorrectly. Shortstop is considered the most important defensive position, arguably catcher might be as well but it's a lot harder to judge than shortstop. And because of that tons of light-hitting slick-fielding players over the years have manned the position to allow for their glove to at least be viable on the field. Thus somehow all these little guys who've played short because it was the only position they could play and not be a complete liability may have skewed the notion of how big you can be to successfully play shortstop. Somehow we've got the notion that "shortstops have always been small so you have to be small to play shortstop" stuck into our thinking, overlooking the possibility that it might not necessarily be the case. Magic Johnson was a point guard at 6'9" because he was a great passer and ballhandler. LeBron James can guard other teams' point guards because he's a great athlete and can use his size to give himself a cushion smaller players can't, not because he's the same size as other point guards. Sometimes guys just do things a little differently and their size makes them look a little out-of-the-norm. That doesn't mean they can't do it, just that somebody let their talent and athleticism determine what they could do, not making an arbitrary decision that their size meant they should do something else. Do I truly believe he could play an adequate shortstop in the major leagues? Actually, I kind of do. I don't necessarily think he'd be a gold-glover, and might in fact be a little below average. But I think his bat would be so plus-plus-plus for the position that it would be worth it. Especially as it would mean Travis Harrison or Amaurys Minier might have a position to move into when they're ready as they look to potentially be much better hitters than anything we'll produce to fill our shortstop hole. What if he keeps growing to be 270 lbs. you ask? Well, what if getting to play the position he wants to play leads to him working on his conditioning more than playing a position where he can just get big and not worry about the consequences, meaning he would have prolonged his career by a few years if he'd stuck at short? I don't have these answers, but I like thinking about it and going , "what if?" Imagine that lineup: CF - Buxton 2B - Rosario C - Mauer SS/3B - Sano LF - Arcia 1B - Vargas 3B/SS - Harrison or Florimon DH - Pinto/D.Hicks/Walker RF - A.Hicks/Kepler Doesn't the thought of Travis Harrison (or eventually Amaurys Minier) sound better than the next Pedro Florimon? How bad would Sano's defense at short have to be for you to not want to trade Harrison's bat for Florimon's? And what if he could actually play it well due to the cannon he has for an arm? Well, there you have it. The reason I read about baseball on the internet instead of working in baseball. As is my wont, I've rambled on longer than necessary. I've already acknowledged this is never going to happen, but I think it's a fun idea regardless. That lineup just makes me drool if Sano could put up his presumed monster line from short instead of 3rd.

With all the talk of late as to who might be our "shortstop of the future", one thought keeps popping back into my head. It's a thought that probably has about as much chance of happening as my winning the lottery twice in my lifetime (and since I haven't won it once yet, unfortunately...) but I can't shake it. Thinking about it a little more has caused me to think about a few other things, like what you want in a shortstop, not just who should be playing the position. I'll start with the ridiculous notion first, so everyone can laugh and skip on to the more useful information located elsewhere on the site. Our shortstop of the future should be: Miguel Sano. First off, where this idea comes from: A quote from Terry Ryan. I don't feel like digging up the exact quote at the moment, but I don't think it's so controversial that anybody is going to challenge it. Essentially it was a quote from Ryan about Sano saying in effect, "he still thinks he should be playing shortstop." And that part of me that wonders about things like this got rolling. Actually that wasn't exactly the foundation for the idea, as I've wondered a bit about moving shortstops to third base previously, but this finally made me interested enough to formalize ideas worthy of putting down in print. A positional glance at what the Twins have coming up through the farm shows a large number of extremeley intriguing prospects, covering most every position except shortstop. Yes, we do have a few names attached to the position, but none of them are making the kind of noise many of our other positional prospects are. Niko Goodrum may have the highest ceiling of the group, but he's more raw athleticism than polished product at the moment. Jorge Polanco looks to be a decent hitter, but may not have the arm you'd want to be the full-time shortstop. Levi Michael was once listed as the best defensive infielder the Twins have (BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Rankings: Organization Top 10 Prospects: 2013 Minnesota Twins Top 10 Prospects), but his hitting has never been very impressive nor consistent. Danny Santana has shown flashes of talent but not much consistency. James Beresford is great defensively but has no power to speak of. Any of them might be fine, but none seems to have "future All-Star" vibes. We have more potentially great outfielders than we know what to do with. 2B has Eddie Rosario looking the part, and Polanco profiles a little better there than SS. 1B has Kennys Vargas and Dalton Hicks in addition to being a potential fallback for hitters who struggle in the field. Catcher has Josmil Pinto currently ripping up his league and Joe Mauer should still have a few more good years in him. Sano currently plays 3B, as does Travis Harrison and now Amaurys Minier, all looking to be plus (likely even better) bats. So, we have a potential surplus of really good bats at 3B. How did that happen? Because we decided that Miguel Sano was going to outgrow the SS position. I couldn't help looking at that and thinking, "Why?" I'll grant that he is going to be a big man, that's obvious. What is it about being large that inherently means he should move to a new position before even getting to try, though? Cal Ripken played the position at a solidly-built 6'4". Alex Rodriguez was a much better defensive shortstop at a muscular 6'3" than Derek Jeter but Jeter got to keep his spot anyway, moving A-Rod to 3rd. Heck, Jeter (6'3") has always been more "shortstop who can hit" than good defender, undeserved gold glove awards aside. Troy Tulowitzki is listed at 6'3", 215 lbs. Why could they do it but others can't? When I think about traits you want in a SS or 3B, a strong arm is obvious, and is possessed by Sano already. In fact he's believed to have an incredible arm, easily good enough for either position. That's part of why Cal Ripken could play the position, he could play a half-step deeper and gun people out anyway. Couldn't Miguel Sano do that as well? Okay, what other traits do you want in your SS? Range, quickness, agility? Well, the range thing is hard to quantify as I'm not a professional scout, nor am I even an amateur scout who watches Sano play. I just read about him on the internet. Judging range gets back to the notion of arm strength somewhat, though. The deeper you play, the more range you have, you get that extra fraction of a second to move to the ball by playing deeper. Quickness? Again, I'm not a professional scout, but I can read boxscores to see that Sano hits triples and steals bases. He's not the second coming of Jim Thome. Agility? Sure, a big guy is going to suffer in that category, but the SS is rarely going to make acrobatic plays to convert double plays, that falls more on the 2B to make the crazy turn-and-throws as they come across the bag and have to throw back to first. And how many people really want to go full out in a takeout slide at a big guy who might take their head off with a throw? With 3B it seems to me like the primary trait you want after arm strength (maybe even before) is fast reflexes. You're closer to the plate, the ball is usually hit a touch harder as it's being pulled more (by righties), the ball just gets on you much faster at third than at short. So to be good at 3rd, you want someone with fast reflexes. Wouldn't you want to determine what kind of reflexes someone has first before making that switch? It's easy to say, "well, he could manage shortstop where only the best fielders can play, he can manage 3rd," but is that really true? What if the guy managed short by having good positioning and a strong arm, not by having lightning reflexes? And wouldn't a large frame be just as likely to struggle with the fast reflexes needed to play 3rd as they would to have the range needed to play short? Sure, with a strong arm, he can play deeper to give himself more time, but that's exactly what he'd be doing to play short, too. I find myself wondering if it isn't an issue where the positional bias is actually working incorrectly. Shortstop is considered the most important defensive position, arguably catcher might be as well but it's a lot harder to judge than shortstop. And because of that tons of light-hitting slick-fielding players over the years have manned the position to allow for their glove to at least be viable on the field. Thus somehow all these little guys who've played short because it was the only position they could play and not be a complete liability may have skewed the notion of how big you can be to successfully play shortstop. Somehow we've got the notion that "shortstops have always been small so you have to be small to play shortstop" stuck into our thinking, overlooking the possibility that it might not necessarily be the case. Magic Johnson was a point guard at 6'9" because he was a great passer and ballhandler. LeBron James can guard other teams' point guards because he's a great athlete and can use his size to give himself a cushion smaller players can't, not because he's the same size as other point guards. Sometimes guys just do things a little differently and their size makes them look a little out-of-the-norm. That doesn't mean they can't do it, just that somebody let their talent and athleticism determine what they could do, not making an arbitrary decision that their size meant they should do something else. Do I truly believe he could play an adequate shortstop in the major leagues? Actually, I kind of do. I don't necessarily think he'd be a gold-glover, and might in fact be a little below average. But I think his bat would be so plus-plus-plus for the position that it would be worth it. Especially as it would mean Travis Harrison or Amaurys Minier might have a position to move into when they're ready as they look to potentially be much better hitters than anything we'll produce to fill our shortstop hole. What if he keeps growing to be 270 lbs. you ask? Well, what if getting to play the position he wants to play leads to him working on his conditioning more than playing a position where he can just get big and not worry about the consequences, meaning he would have prolonged his career by a few years if he'd stuck at short? I don't have these answers, but I like thinking about it and going , "what if?" Imagine that lineup: CF - Buxton 2B - Rosario C - Mauer SS/3B - Sano LF - Arcia 1B - Vargas 3B/SS - Harrison or Florimon DH - Pinto/D.Hicks/Walker RF - A.Hicks/Kepler Doesn't the thought of Travis Harrison (or eventually Amaurys Minier) sound better than the next Pedro Florimon? How bad would Sano's defense at short have to be for you to not want to trade Harrison's bat for Florimon's? And what if he could actually play it well due to the cannon he has for an arm? Well, there you have it. The reason I read about baseball on the internet instead of working in baseball. As is my wont, I've rambled on longer than necessary. I've already acknowledged this is never going to happen, but I think it's a fun idea regardless. That lineup just makes me drool if Sano could put up his presumed monster line from short instead of 3rd.