Sizing up the infield market
The Fanhouse GM meetings update states that the Reds are having money woes and will need to shed a ton of payroll. One of the trade candidates is Brandon Phillips. I’m sure the price would be high to get him, since the Reds need cheap players who will be under team control for a long time. These are the Twins favorite type of players. Phillips is set to make around 7 million next season, which is a bargain considering the power he has out of the second base position. I know a lot of people have been mentioning Polancoas a candidate to play second base, and he is a very nice player. However, if we can get Brandon Phillips for someone like Glen Perkins I think we should do it. He is a very complete player, he was a 20-20 guy last year. His on-base skills leave something to be desired, his career OBP is .312. Not good. At all. So when we are deciding between Polanco and Phillips you are basically choosing power or OBP. I’d be happy with either, and adding Polanco gives us a nice #2 hitter, whereas Phillips is better suited further down in the order. The problem with going after these two guys is it leaves us with Punto at third, and if its Phillips, no clear #2 hitter.
The thirdbase market consists basically of Chone Figgins and Adrian Beltre. Both will probably be very expensive, with Beltre probably getting more because he is a power hitter and everyone overpays for homers. If I was running the show I would go after Figgins. I think Gardy would like him since he is scrappy and doesn’t hit for power, like Punto, but unlike Punto he is, you know, good. Man, how good would that career 363 OBP look between Span and Mauer? Gardy would get his way, having fast guys at the top of the lineup, but those fast guys would also have high OBPs. I think the main reason I want Figgins is because it would make the lineup Gardy-proof. Span-Figgins-Mauer-Morneau-Cuddyer-Kubel-Hardy-Young-Punto. Not too shabby and there is really no other way to construct it, except maybe flip-flop Cuddyer and Kubel.
I really hope that Smith and his brain trust aren’t content with Punto as a starting infielder and do the due diligence on ones that are available either through free agency or a trade. The two most glaring holes are obviously second and third base, and I think we need to fill one of them, with Punto playing the other.
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Phillips is an interesting target. If all it costs us is Perkins and 1 or 2 low/mid level prospects, I think we have to jump on it. And even with his $7M salary, the Twins would still have enough to pursue either Figgins or Beltre, depending on what the market thinks about spending money this winter. (I continue to expect that GMs will be extremely reluctant to offer big dollars, which means it’s quite simply the perfect time to be aggressive and get good players locked up to long term deals.)
Until the doors are closed, I think we should be aiming to fill the holes at both 2B and 3B, rather than settling our hopes at just one.
(Um, by the way … is anyone else worried that we don’t seem to be thinking about the pitching staff at all? I mean, Span-Figgins-Mauer-Morneau-Cuddyer-Kubel-Hardy-Phillips-Young is a lineup that’s basically guaranteed to score a shitload of runs, but we still need at least one starter and without knowing how much we can rely on Neshek, we probably need a reliever too. I mean, for now I like that we’re focusing on the offense, but we can’t just ignore the pitching staff completely.)
Pitching is just harder to predict. I don’t think we will be signing John Lackey or trading for Roy Halladay. I think we will sign a Pavano type pitcher, hope Baker and Blackburn can be good for an entire season, and that Kevin Slowey can stay healthy. I konw I used the words “hope” and “think” but I don’t think there is much of a concrete plueprint to our pitching problem. At least not as straightforward as “sign Chone Figgins”.
I totally agree, of course … it just worries me that there’s so much “hoping” going on when it comes to the pitching staff, which in all honesty was our main weakness in 2009.
If we make 1 or 2 more moves to upgrade the infield, I think there’s little doubt that we’ll have one of the top offenses in the league. And an infield defense consisting of Beltre/Figgins, Hardy, and Phillips will be very strong defensively — but we don’t have any groundball pitchers outside of Blackburn, so it’s the mediocre outfield defense that’ll hurt us.
We’re going to need to refit the pitching staff, targeting groundball pitchers (which we won’t do because the Twins mistakenly believe that they already do have a staff full of groundball pitchers) and strikeout pitchers (which we won’t do because the Twins organizationally do not believe in strikeouts … despite the fact that when the Twins built their reputation for “good defense,” they led the league in strikeouts every year).
Basically, I don’t think Bill Smith or the front office thinks there’s even a problem with the pitching staff.
Or, the things I listed as “hopes” and “thoughts” they views as “sure things” and “guarantees”
Judging by their actions in past offseasons, that’s probably accurate.
The Phillies appear to be the frontrunner for Figgins. Bill needs to get aggressive.