Five Twins Fixes Before Target Field Opens
Heading into next season, here are five things that the Twins could do to make their team stronger.
- Get Mauer some reps at 1B. Mauer is the kind of hitter that doesn’t come along very often and even if the Twins are determined to have him stay behind the plate to some degree, we need to start decreasing his time back there immediately if he is going to have a long, sustained career. There simply are no catchers who maintain a huge offensive presence while catching for 12-15 years. My solution would be to have him catch the 3 best starters he works with and play some 1B and DH the other days. On top of that, it seems clear that Morneau is going to need a little more rest to maintain his performance over the course of the year. They are probably going to need to find 10-12 games during the season where he sits, outright, and if Mauer is sufficient at 1B (Cuddyer is NOT) then Morneau can do some DHing as well. Kubel would be fine to play LF for 50-60 games during the year, so this wouldn’t be at his expense.
- Sign Pavano. We started the season with something like Baker, Blackburn, Slowey, Liriano, and Perkins. Only Baker has pitched well enough and been durable enough to give us hope for next year. Who knows what we are going to get out of Slowey after the injury? Blackburn, Perkins, and Liriano have been dreadful, and there’s no reason to expect anything different given their sustained poor performance.
- Sign an ace. Maybe a guy like Halladay or Harden is a pipe-dream, but I’m not necessarily talking about a guy like that (though it would greatly improve their chances of winning the division and the championship). I’m simply talking about a guy who is better and more consistent than their best pitcher (which is probably Baker right now). This, with #2, would give them a top 3 of Ace, Baker, and Pavano. That’s a better starting 3 than we’ve had for several seasons, and would give us a good shot at winning the division again.
- Upgrade something in the infield. Crede is gone. You simply can’t have Buscher, Punto, and Casilla in most of your lineups and put any kind of scare into opposing pitchers. I’m not terribly excited about Orlando Cabrera, but if it’s him or nothing I will take him.
- Cut your losses with Delmon. The guy is young, granted, but the organization hates him. From the players through the coach to upper management, it’s difficult to find someone with a favorable comment about him. Practically speaking, we have too many strikeouts in the outfield and not enough power. Cuddyer, with his huge salary, isn’t going anywhere. Span and Gomez don’t exactly knock the cover off the ball. If you are going to have a formidable lineup going forward that can compete with the big teams (and not just skirt through the Central), you are going to need to add some offense in the outfield. We’ve already addressed this a bit in #1, by putting Kubel out there a bit, so it’s mostly important that we get a good right-handed stick who can play 120-130 games in left field, and especially take the games vs. tough lefties.
The Twins will have a short new-stadium-induced honeymoon with their crowd sizes. The Tigers, however, proved that it also matters what kind of product you put on the field. Remember their first few season with that bum team? That says nothing about the worst Toronto crowd ever — the other night against these very Minnesota Twins. And there’s nothing wrong with the Rogers Centre…
