As Bill Smith said many year ago…“I don’t use the term ‘Twins Way,’ I use the term ‘Right Way,’”
The place where the Twins have emphatically decided to undermine the defense is in the infield. The overwhelming consensus out of Fort Myers this spring was that Brian Dozier was the team’s best defensive shortstop.
But Dozier is in Rochester, and a 38-year-old is the shortstop — and there is no real backup.
In the final days of the exhibition season, Trevor Plouffe started games at second base and shortstop — the same Plouffe who washed out in ugly fashion as a middle infielder last season, the same Plouffe who was so atrocious that he was told to play outfield.
So he spent his winter shagging fly balls, spent his spring camp in the outfield — and now, suddenly, he’s in the middle infield again.
Failure is always an option.
I really don’t want to disparage the intelligence of the Twins decision makers. Terry Ryan, Ron Gardenhire and Co. have seen more baseball than I have, and they have far more on the line than I do. I’m absolutely certain they have reasons for what they’re doing, even if I can’t identify those reasons.
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1. Dan Posted: April 09, 2012 at 11:39 AM (#4101029)Of course the Tigers are at least getting a top flight offense by sacrificing defense; the Twins can't really make that claim.
Yeah, um, Mr Thoma, you're going to have to just accept that your life will be full of things you're not going to understand. It's been going on for a while and it's probably not going to get better over time. Perhaps you have hobbies you're better suited to cover?
Baby Jesus cries when people write things like "My reasoning in a nutshell: A return to normal production from the injured trio of Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Denard Span would largely fix the offensive woes; and history has shown repeatedly that the best cure for a weak pitching staff is an injection of outfield speed and infield defense." Sometimes the best way to improve a pitching staff is to add talent. It's too bad that the big pitching prospect ticketed for the 2012 rotation had his elbow surgery last year. It's too bad that you real closer took a different offer in Texas. It's too bad that your big bullpen move was the Zumaya elbow lottery. No, the real solution to these problems isn't getting more or different pitchers, it's defense. (Here's a hint: when you propose a rebuilt infield be sure to include a second baseman.)
Regarding the Twins D, last year they had bad defense and bad offense, so this is totally a (minor) improvement. Things could go a lot of different ways for them, but in no circumstance will they succeed without scoring a lot of runs. Your pitching has to be pretty good to make a defense-based, three run offense work and they don't have anything like that roster. Once they didn't choose to sign any real pitchers, piling up some hitters on short-term contracts and waiting for Dozier and Benson and Gibson and even Nishioka to ripen and come up is not a terrible plan right now.
Which will come in so well when the Tigers hit the balls over the defense entirely.
And, hey, if Carroll washes out, cut him and give Dozier the job.
If he can't play an adequate 2b/ss (and his fielding metrics match the observers who say he can't) it doesn't look like he's going to have an MLB career... but those two months in Rochester in 2011 are still kind of intriguing...
2004 he was drafted in 2004, 8 years ago....
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