Marwin Gonzalez was an absolute God send in 2019 for the Minnesota Twins. The front office locked up the utility man on February 25th to a 2 year $21 million contract. His ability to play all over the diamond was priceless as it turned out, as we saw him start the year at 3B to fill in for an injured Sano. We saw him go on to fill in all over the field as we saw injuries from C.J. Cron, Max Kepler, Byron Buxton, as well as plenty others. Marwin's value goes beyond the statistics. The Twins would have been lost without him in 2019, who despite the depth and versatility within the organization, found themselves relying on guys like Ronald Torreyes down the stretch as the injuries piled up. Despite the value Marwin Gonzalez provided in 2019, I think there's reason to believe that his 2020 could prove to be even more valuable.

As previously mentioned, Gonzalez was signed on February 25th, two days after the Twins began their spring training games.

The slow progression of the free agent market caused him to wait around on a longer term contract that would never come. The Twins being ever opportunistic, took advantage of the market and signed Gonzalez to a team friendly deal. Gonzalez had waited long enough. He reported right away, but still had to ramp up before being game ready. When he finally did finish playing catchup, he managed a line of .115/.179/.397 by the end of the spring. He had struck out in 13 of his 26 at bats. We hear all the time about the importance of the spring training routine for pitching, but why wouldn't the same be true for hitting? Gonzalez had a triple slash of .167/.244/.256 through the first month of the season, good for a 33 wRC+. He struck out about 24% of the time. His offseason was clearly out of the ordinary for him to that point in his career, and his spring training was a rushed and shortened experience that I would argue carried into the season. 2020 is an opportunity for Marwin to settle in and have a normal spring training again, hopefully leading to a more consistent start to the season.

At just 30 years old, Marwin shouldn't be on the decline quite yet. His 93 wRC+ however was his worst since 2016, and well below the benchmark he had set for himself on average over the last 5 years. When looking at why this may have been, I saw that Marwin had an IL stint from 6/19-6/29 for a hamstring injury. This itself is an injury that's known to linger for what can be weeks. I was searching however for the IL stint for the oblique injury I remembered Marwin having, but it doesn't exist. He was scratched on September 24th as a precautionary measure for an oblique injury having played in 6 of the last 8 games. However, he didn't play a single game from August 28th-September 15th for the same oblique injury. He was likely playing through this oblique strain (those are not fun) for weeks.

Marwin's 2019 was far from a lost season. He was worth 1.4 wins according to fangraphs measures and filled in admirably at just about every position. He's likely to be the same super utility man in 2020 as well, as the Twins are returning a solid lineup only currently missing a full time corner infielder. While he will be another year older, Marwin Gonzalez stands to benefit from the normal spring training routine this year unlike in 2019. Not only might this get him more prepared to perform come the regular season, it may even mean he will be in better shape to avoid the soft tissue injuries that plagued him in 2020. Despite the rough start mentioned above, from April 29th forward Marwin seemed to get back into the swing of things to the tune of a .283/.337/.446 triple slash. Penciling that into the bottom 1/3 of our lineup is simply ridiculous, and I believe that in 2020 we will see Marwin Gonzalez thrive in a similar way for much of the season.