What the Hell are the Twins gonna do at Shortstop?

The Twins hit the back stretch of the season, somewhat limping and hovering around .500 and 2.5 games back of the second Wild Card spot.  There are two ways to look at this season.  The first is that the team overachieved and could never have sustained their early season success, but a .500ish year and semi-meaningful games with an outside shot at a surprise playoff appearance a year ahead of schedule (a .500 would clear their Vegas over/under on wins by 12 games) is pretty damn neato.  The second is to say that the Twins were running away with the division and collapsed, and the season is a failure.  Obviously, the first way is correct and the second way is for morons.

The other success of this season is you can see the future starting to take shape.  Not so much the pitching side which has too many questions for even me to try to answer, but the position players?  It's happening.

There's little doubt that the opening day outfield next year will be Byron Buxton, Aaron Hicks, and Eddie Rosario (and that should be a damn good fielding unit).  Miguel Sano will have third locked down, and Brian Dozier is going to be at second for a while.  1B/DH is going to be some combination of Joe Mauer, because we're stuck with him, Trevor Plouffe, if they keep him around - he has value and they control him for two more years but he's getting spendy, and Kennys Vargas, if he remembers how to hit.  Ideally Oswaldo Arcia does the same and becomes the fourth outfielder with some DH time as well.  Catcher goes to Kurt Suzuki unfortunately for another year, and then the hope is either Josmil Pinto or Chris Herrmann step up.  It's a nice solid start to team.  But what the hell are they gonna do at shortstop?

They have three current options - Danny Santana, Eduardo Escobar, and Eduardo Nunez.  They're all young and under team control so they'll probably get plenty of chances, but I don't see a full time shortstop here anywhere.  Santana flashed a solid rookie year, finishing 7th in AL Rookie of the Year voting, but had all the warning signs of a fluke which came to fruition this year.  In his 256 plate appearances in the majors this year he OPSed just .541, 3rd worst in all the majors, and rocked a 66-5 strikeout to walk ratio.  I covered Escobar here, coming to the conclusion that his upside, last year, was adequate at best, and his downside, this year, is a crappy utility guy.  Nunez seems to have moved into the starters role by default, but there's nothing there to suggest he's anything other than a replacement level utility guy, which he has been for his six big league seasons.

So what's next?  Look at any Twins' top prospect list and you'll see two names, and only two names - Nick Gordon and Jorge Polanco.  Gordon was picked just last year out of high school so he's probably not going to be ready until 2018 at the earliest, so it's Polanco or bust.  And I'm really not sure how to feel about that.

He's certainly looked good in his limited time in the majors, slashing .313/.450/.500 with 4 walks and 3 strikeouts in 20 plate appearances and Fangraphs has him as a better than average defensive shortstop.  All positive signs.  His career line of .288/.349/.406 in the minors is alright, but more impressive is his 269 strikeouts to 182 walks, which shows that unlike a lot of shortstops he's not a complete hacker up there.

So what's the problem?  No power at all.  Zero.  None.  That .406 slugging over his minor league career would be one of the lower numbers in the majors this year, and if you look at his ISO, which strips out a high average influencing from influencing slugging, he's put up Ben Revere type numbers each of the last two seasons, only without the speed.

I'm not saying he's terrible or can't develop into more of an all around player.  He hit very well in rookie and A ball, with some power, and he's only 21 and already at AAA with two flashes in the big leagues and he's pretty much hit for a high average everywhere.  I'm fully rooting for him, it's just amazing to me that all the eggs have to be in this basket, but there's nobody else.  Levi Michael was supposed to be the shortstop of the future, but he was drafted out of college in 2011 and is still stuck at AA so I don't think we can really count on him any more, especially since he has less power than Polanco.

Considering the free agent market looks pretty bare at the position for the next couple years we should all be huge Jorge Polanco fans and hope he gets to the majors, for good, sooner rather than later.  Help us, Jorge Polanco, you're our only hope.

Is Eduardo Escobar, like, good?

I was hoping the Twins would do something at the trade deadline, and they did.  I was hoping they'd get bullpen help, and they did.  So I suppose I'm happy with what they did.  They couldn't really have done much more without gutting the future, and considering their performance since the trade deadline it looks like an every better decision to mostly stand pat.  I was hoping they'd find a way to upgrade shortstop, but the two instant starters who may have been available are both expensive and have question marks (Jose Reyes and Starlin Castro) so whatevs.  With Danny Santana back in the minors, it looks like Eduardo Escobar is the new shortstop, and may be for a while considering there's no readily available replacement unless Santana turns it around.  So is Eduardo Escobar, like, good?

Current slash line:  .239/.270/.380.  Yikes.  Down considerably from last year's decent .275/.315/.406.  His OPS of .651 ranks him 19th in the majors among shortstops with at least 250 plate appearances - better than I would have guessed (and better than Castro).  Considering Santana ranked dead last, that's manageable.  Both his walk and strikeout rates are career worsts this year, and this approach change probably also accounts for his dip in BABIP from a career number .308 to .294 (it was .336 last year) and his line drive rate has plummeted from 24% to 17.8%.  Both numbers are considerably worse than his career numbers, so we can hope he's just having a bad year.

One thing I've always liked about his bat is he's got some pop compared to your average shortstop.  He ranks 8th in ISO (slg-avg) among shortstops with 250+ PAs, and that number has increased each of the last two years.  He's also 16th in extra base hits, despite having a hundred plate appearances fewer than almost every shortstop ahead of him.  Overall, he's a complete free swinger who refuses to walk and has a little bit of pop for his position.  He's only 26, so his bat probably gets a passing grade, though it would be nice if he could revert back to last year's version.

He's a horrendous base stealer.  He's gone 6 for 12 in his career and 2 for 5 this year, and it's probably best for everyone at this point if he just stops doing it.  Though that would probably give Dan Gladden a heart attack.  Seriously you ever listen to this guy on the radio?  He's completely obsessed with the running game.  It's maddening.  Speaking of, Escobar is a pretty good base runner outside of not being able to steal base if a small child was catching.  Well, actually this year he rates dead average, but last year he was slightly goodish.  This is according to UBR at Fangraphs which takes note of such things as going from 1st to 3rd on a single or scoring from 1st on a double and stuff like that.  Makes sense.  Yet another regression from Escobar.

Last season, Escobar's fielding (at shortstop) was above average according to Ultimate Zone Rating.  This year, however, like everything else it's plummeted to terrible.  Granted defensive metrics aren't perfect, but considering he's on pace to make about 40% more errors than last season I can buy it.  This year his UZR ranks 36th out of 40 shortstops with at least 210 innings played at SS (just ahead of Danny Santana).  Last year he ranked 14th.

So what do we have?  A player who would have been a competent starter last season who has been pretty rough this year.  Add it all up and he's gone from 2.5 WAR last year down to -0.7 this year.  Considering Santana is -1.2 he's an upgrade, but a disappointment at the same time.  Last year WAR put him as the #14 shortstop in the majors.  This year he's at the bottom, ahead of only Santana and Castro.  Yuck.

Considering he's 26 years old and under team control through 2018 there's considerable reason for the Twins to hope he can be the new shortstop of the future.  Not to mention the free agent market for shortstops is garbage.  Last year he looked like he had a chance.  This year, however?  No, he's not good.  Hopefully they don't rush Jorge Polanco.

Twins Stuff

The reason I'm not posting as much this Twins' season is not because they suck.  They are a far more interesting team this season than last and I'm actually enjoying this more than any season in a while.  The reason I'm not posting as much is some combination of laziness and apathy and alcoholism.  I'm not sure those last two seasons make all that much sense together but neither does your face so shut it.  Anyway, here's a bunch of Twins thoughts.  I'll try to make up for low quantity of posting with a sheer overwhelming number of words.  Goal is 2,000.  I've got some Andy Capp Hot Fries, some Jefferson's bourbon, and nothing better to do with my time right now.  I can do this.  I know it.  Let us begin.

-  Since reaching the age of reason I have purchased three Twins "jersey shirts."  Not jerseys, because I'm not a weirdo, but those shirts with the name on number on them.  I've had Denard Span, Jason Kubel, and Oswaldo Arcia.  Granted the Arcia call was risky because he was in his rookie season and could have gone either way, but it's now starting to pay off because he's been white hot since getting recalled.  He's just killing the ball, putting up an ISO of .250 which would put him just outside the Top 10 in the majors if he had enough at-bats.  He's basically just decided to stop hitting groundballs because they're boring.  Arcia only puts the ball on the ground 32% of the time (4th lowest in the majors) and smacks it into the air knowing that it's more exciting that way.  He's still got a ways to go and it wouldn't kill him to learn the strikezone a little bit, but he's improved his fielding this year and is on his way to developing into a legit power hitter.  Now just stop being hurt all the time.  I'd like to be wearing my Arcia shirt for many more years.  No flame outs please.

-  This Twins signing of Kendrys Morales is weird.  Not that they can't use him.  The offense has started to teeter a bit after starting off hot and he's a career .280/.333/.480 hitter which gives him a career OPS+ of 120 - no doubt the guy's a big bat and he was 5th in the MVP voting in 2009.  It's just for this team to pony up $7.5 million for a guy who is half-year rental and whose defensive "skills" are redundant with a bunch of other guys is so far out of character I had trouble believing the news when I read it.  IF, and this is a giant IF, they're doing this to see if they can contend, and when they realize the Wild Card is a pipe dream this year they figure they'll flip him for a prospect at the deadline, then I'll tip my cap.  That, however, is a decidedly un-Twins like move.  Wait and see.

-  The Twins draft, however, was more Twins-like simply because it was incredibly perplexing.  The first pick was great - SS Nick Gordon - a toolsy high school shortstop with an excellent pedigree (Tom Gordon's son and Dee Gordon's brother) who was no doubt one of the best (potential) players in the draft.  I even saw one writer call Gordon the best pick of the draft.  The next pick was fine - RP Nick Burdi out of Louisville.  Thought to be the best relief pitcher in the draft.  I'm not a huge fan of taking relievers, but he's supposed to be the best, he's a college guy so his track to the bigs could be short, and it gives the Twins something to point to if they decide to deal Glen Perkins when his value is at its highest, something that needs to be explored.  So ok, fine.  But then it gets crazy.

Next they took a college reliever with control issues who doesn't have a secondary pitch.  Then they went with a college reliever with control problems.  Next up was a college reliever who was a complete failure when he was a starter.  Then they took a college reliever who has already had Tommy John surgery and had a rib removed for something something words.  Following that they went with some pitcher who MLB doesn't have a scouting report for so I can't bitch about anything, and then finished up their first 8 picks with another college reliever who led Missouri in both saves and home runs who moved into the rotation at the end of the season and could be a big league starter someday if he learns a change-up.  So that's 1 position player and 7 relievers.

Does that strike anybody else as completely bizarre?  Three of these guys are definite relievers with only Burdi sounding like a big league closer.  I know relievers are important of course, but generally they're failed starters who have failed in the minor or major leagues, not already having failed in college, which is the case with two of their picks.  I know that's a simplistic view, but I can't get over this drafting sequence.  Taking college relievers and converting to starters is also dicey, but it sounds like that will likely be the Twins plan with four of these guys, all of whom either need to learn or master another pitch or two or need help with their command.  Sounds to me like a bunch of guys who are going to be converted to pitch to contact.

I mean, I know the scouting team for the Twins knows a whole lot more than me, I'm not dumb or arrogant enough to suggest differently, it just seems really, really weird to me to use this many early picks and similar types of gambles.  What about a high upside high school arm?  How about mix in a position player somewhere?  I don't know, maybe college relievers are the new market inefficiency and the Twins are playing their own version of Moneyball.  Hey, after the Morales signing we may be off in all new territory here.  I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but I am less than confident that we'll look back on this draft and be like, oh damn that was sweet.

-  He probably deserves his own post at this point after spinning another gem today, but how good has Phil Hughes been?  If you want to know nothing else about Hughes this year, just know that he has 72 strikeouts versus 8 walks on the season.  That 9-1 ratio is insane and it's really all you need to know that yes, this Phil Hughes cat is for real.  That ratio is second in the majors behind only David Price and would be the best in any full season since Cliff Lee in 2010.   Seriously impressive.

Hughes refining his control has not come at the expense of his getting pounded, which can sometimes happen when you're throwing more balls over the plate.  His line drive/ground ball/fly ball splits are pretty much identical to his career norms, and as a result his BABIP is about where it's always been.  His LOB % is right where it should be too, so it's unlikely luck is playing a major role here.  One of Hughes's biggest issues has been home runs, and although his HRs allowed per 9 innings pitched has been slashed by nearly half off his 2012-2013 rate.  He's done that because his HR/FB rate is drastically down at about half what it was from 2012-2013.  Considering his ratio so far this year would put him in the top 6 last season he's probably due for some regression, but the combination of better command and control and the move to a more manageable Target Field vs. Yankee Stadium make an improvement here likely.

Advanced metrics (FIP ranks him 11th, XFIP 30th) say Hughes is a legit #1 pitcher (assuming we go with the theory that there are 30 true #1s, just some teams might have more than one).  I'm not ready to go that far, not by a long shot, but something like a #2?  That just might be.

-  Danny Santana and Brian Dozier are staying hot, and perhaps we've got our keystone combo for the next five years or more sitting right in front of us.  Since my post after Santana's call-up he's justified my probably overhype, batting .372/.407/.500, showing the power I hoped/questioned/doubted he'd have with 2 homers and 5 doubles so far for an ISO of .128 which isn't Troy Tulowitzki-like but would rank him in the top half of all MLB shortstops and his overall performance at the plate has been unreal with a weighted on-base average of .400, second in the majors at short.  Of course Eduardo Escobar's breakout (more later) and Aaron Hicks's continued struggles have pushed Santana to center field, though the two positions are pretty much a wash as to offensive expectations (though it seems harder to find a good SS who can hit).  Though Santana has been a meh shortstop so far, he's actually been an excellent center fielder which seems hard to believe considering how little time he spent in the outfield before this year.  Ideally he'll get more time at short and field it credibly enough to play there full-time.  More on this later.

Since my post on Dozier he's put up an OPS of .871 (would be a top 20 number for all positions over the entire season) with 3 homers and 6 doubles in 15 games.  Simply put he's a power monster.  I am absolutely in love with this guy.  See my last post linked above and just the improvements and refinements he's made in his approach and how they've paid off - how can you not love him?  He's sporting the #1 walk rate in the bigs among second basemen and the #4 OBP, #2 SLG, #2 wOBA, #1 ISO, and #2 OPS - that's an all-star.  Of course he's fourth in AL balloting with no hope of closing the gap which means he'll get snubbed by some combination of Robinson Cano, Ian Kinsler, and Dustin Pedroia because the Twins will get one rep and it'll be Glen Perkins, but he really should make it - he's that good.  Big, big fan and if I'm right, and I usually am, he should get plenty of other chances.

-  Ok so Escobar.  Total breakout season.  OPS by year:  .571, .537, .628, and .790 this year.  The interesting notes are the natural type progression towards a breakout and that he's already within 10 of his career high in plate appearances so he's got a lot of that whole "never had a chance" thing to him.  The question is, does this pass the smell test and Escobar is the kind of hitter who ranks , or is he a fraud?  In the latter case that's awesome!  Suddenly the Twins have hitters to build around in Dozier, Escobar, Santana, Arcia (hopefully) and maybe Trevor Plouffe (I may be too tired to get to him).  Great.  But if he's a fraud it might be even better as long as the Twins recognize it (I know but let's stick with the new Moneyball thing - for me).  In that case you capitalize on his success and flip him at the trade deadline, move Santana back to your SS of the future (he's going to be moved somewhere once Byron Buxton arrives anyway) and we move on.  So let's investigate like Scooby Doo.

First thing to check is always BABIP, and Escobar is at .383 this year against a career number of .315.  Yikes.  Bad start for the "he's for realsies" crowd.  That number is fourth in the majors.  Hard to believe it's real, but let's check line drive rate.  27.3%!  That's good!  That's 7th best in the majors and a nice improvement over last season!  Even better is that those extra percentage points towards line drives are coming from fly balls, which for a non home run hitter like Escobar is a move in the right direction.  Ok, so more liners, great.  Any reason for this?

Well his walk rate is still horrible and his K rate is up a little - neither of which say fluke but neither of which suggest growth either.  What does suggest some growth is making more contact (and clearly better contact) on balls he swings at in the strikezone.  He's also swinging at more pitches outside the zone, but making less contact, which I'm struggling to interpret (thanks booze.  and obama) but I choose to believe he's taking better swings instead of that weak crap where he used to basically swing just to make contact and hit a shitty ball (the slight uptick in K rate might be evidence of this).  Though the nerd stats are kind of mixed bag of evidence and perhaps luck here, one thing that looks very good is that other than the change-up Escobar is hitting better against every type of pitch this year than in his career, including punishing fastballs.

So the jury is still out on Escobar, but I admit things look better than I thought they would.  No matter what the case he still rates as one of the better defensive shortstops in the game and that has value either way.  Escobar may be the most interesting case on the team, simply because if they decide to move him there's a pretty clear plan in place (if you believe in Santana like I do and if you don't you're probably a terrible person who roots for Europe in the World Cup).  I'll be watching this one with much interest.  Or some interest.  At least a little interest.

Fare thee well, Francisco Liriano

Everybody knew Francisco Liriano was going to be traded, it was just a matter of where to and for what.  With the starting pitching market drying up after Cole Hamels resigned with the Phillies, Matt Garza got hurt, Ryan Dempster basically saying he'd only waive his no trade rights to go to the Dodgers to play with his BFF Ted Lilly, and Zack Greinke (Angels), Anibal Sanchez (Tigers), and Wandy Rodriguez (Pirates) already have been moved, the Twins looked to have some leverage to maximize their return.  The best pitchers still thought to be available were Josh Johnson, James Shields, and Liriano, but with the Marlins reportedly asking for the world for Johnson and the Rays on the fence about whether to move Shields, Liriano may have been the most attractive option for teams looking for pitching help - and plenty still were.  Texas, the Dodgers, Atlanta, and St. Louis were all rumored to have interest in him, so the hope was the Twins could play them off each other to get at least one good prospect in return.

Instead, they traded him to the White Sox for a couple middling prospects in IF Eduardo Escobar and SP Pedro Hernandez.

Escobar ranks right around the 10th best prospect in the Sox system (but keep in mind the White Sox have the worst system in the majors according to almost everyone) and a plus fielder at three positions, and in fact was ranked as the top fielder in Chicago's system for four consecutive years by Baseball America.  That's good.  What's not so good is his bat.  He's hit at a sub-Puntoian level in his 97 at-bats this year, putting up a slash line of .207/.281/.276, which is a stellar combination of not getting on base and having zero power.  And it isn't exactly like he's just struggling to adjust to major league pitching, because his career line in the minors is .266/.303/.354, an OPS on par with Drew Butera's major league numbers this year.  He did sign when he was 17 and is still just 23 so there's time to develop something, but it's likely not going to be power.   The Twins are starting him at Rochester which is a good move so he can work on his hitting, which is good because as it stands right now his upside is probably as a utility backup infielder.  If he can figure out a way to hit .280 or so with at least a little gap power, combined with his fielding, he could be a starter for the Twins along the lines of Alcides Escobar, but that's probably his absolute ceiling with a floor of Denny Hocking.

Hernandez, the pitcher the Twins got in the deal, generally ranks around 20th in the White Sox system, depending on what you read (and remember, again, the Sox have the worst system in baseball).  He was acquired by Chicago in the Carlos Quentin trade, and you know it's always a good sign when two different organizations are willing to trade a prospect.  He is a lefty, which is good, and his career minor league numbers are decent, which is also good.  He's spent time as both a starter and reliever in the minors, and has a career ERA of 3.42 and WHIP of 1.24 in six minor league seasons.  He had a shot at the Sox rotation back on July 18th, making his first career start against Boston, but gave up 12 hits and 8 runs in just four innings and was sent back to AAA.  He was striking out batters at a pretty respectable rate up until he hit AAA, but this year, after being re-promoted to AAA, registered 17 Ks in 17 innings.  It's pretty obvious why the Twins' were interested -  his fastball sits at 89 mph and he doesn't walk anybody, the Twins' wet dream.

With Liriano hitting free agency after this season, as well as his erratic pitching since his surgery, nobody was going to pay a monster bonanza to get him but he flashed enough success that several teams were at least interested, and the best Terry Ryan could do was two 23-year old barely prospects from the team with the worst farm system in the league?  Still, there are a couple of positives:


1.  Although their upside isn't all that high, both Hernandez and Escobar are 23 and in AAA, and as such both will likely hit the majors with the Twins this year so we'll see what the Twins have quickly.  Both are likely to contribute at the big league level in some capacity, with Hernandez downside a bullpen arm/spot starter and Escobar a utility man, with Escobar having a chance to slot in to 2b (assuming Plouffe/Dozier are the left side of the infield for a few years at least) and Hernandez could end up in the rotation.  If Ryan couldn't get high upside guys, he at least was able to get players that will at least do something at the MLB level, and I guess that's a good second option.


2.  It was time for Liriano to go.  I heard a couple idiot callers on the radio complaining about the Twins' giving up on him and seriously dudes, he sucks.  How many years can you get sucked in by his potential?  This is the guy who has lost his spot in the rotation multiple times and has had an ERA over 5.00 in three of the last four years, including this season.  Suddenly you think he's put it all together because he struck out 15 batters one game?  He has a few starts like that every season, and every season it's the same story as he bombs out his next start.  Trust me, he hasn't suddenly figured it out.  You know who else once struck out 15 guys in one game?  Ron Villone.  Yeah, exactly.  And the no-hitter?  According to game score Liriano's was the worst no-hitter in history.  I'm not impressed by a no-hitter for the sake of a no-hitter either, because Phil Humber has one too.  It was time to move on.  You can only get fooled by potential for so long before you're no longer and optimist, you're an idiot.