Who is Tzu-Wei Lin?

[Lucas Seehafer PT]

The Minnesota Twins have yet to make a substantial splash in free agency, but they have landed a few interesting players on minor league deals. One such player is former Boston Red Sox utilityman Tzu-Wei Lin.Boston outrighted Lin this past October after he spent the previous eight seasons with the organization; he was originally signed by the club out of Taiwan in 2012.

 

The signing of Lin seems to provide further evidence to the foregone conclusion that Ehire Adrianza - and to a lesser extent Marwin Gonzalez - will not be returning to the Twins after four successful yet unremarkable seasons.

 

Lin topped out as the 16th best prospect in the Red Sox’s system before making his major league debut in 2017. During his time in Boston, he was billed as a defensive Swiss Army knife of sorts, being able to play virtually every position in the field. He appeared at every position save for first base over the first 101 games of his career, though 70% of his time has been spent at either shortstop or second base.

 

However, despite his perceived versatility, Lin’s defensive numbers leave much to be desired across a small sample.

 

 

According to FanGraphs, Lin grades as a decent second baseman (2.1) and shows some potential at third base (0.9) in terms of career UZR - the equivalent of 14.9 and 21.9 career UZR/150, respectively - but falls flat virtually everywhere else. So, he can do everything, but nothing particularly well; he’s less a Swiss Army knife and more a poor generic brand facsimile.

 

Offensively, Lin has less pop than a popgun. His average exit velocity (85.7 mph) and barrel percentage (2.9%) fall well below the league average (88.3 and 6.4%, respectively) according to Baseball Savant, and he’s only ever launched one home run across 218 plate appearances.

 

 

Lin has fairly good plate discipline boasting career 9.6% walk and 25.7% chase percentages - both considered well above average - however, he rarely makes opposing pitchers pay for having to throw him strikes. His slow swing velocity and overall lack of power - even extrabase power - doesn’t prevent pitchers from pounding the zone.

 

In essence, the Twins’ signing of Tzu-Wei Lin is likely more of a low-risk, low-reward backup plan than a direct response to the pending departures of Adrianza and Gonzalez. His acquisition should not - and likely will not - prevent them from looking to sign or trade for a versatile defender in the vein of Kike Hernadez or Andrelton Simmons.

 

Signings like that of Lin’s are common occurrences in baseball as, at the very least, they help build the overall depth of a team’s farm system while being able to take an inexpensive flier on a young talent; Lin is only 26-years-old. In all likelihood, Lin will spend the majority of his time with the St. Paul Saints during the 2021 season, though his presence provides an available, if fleeting, stopgap should, say, Jorge Polanco or Luis Arraez suffer an injury and the Twins determine that Travis Blankenhorn and/or Royce Lewis are not quite ready for the big show.

 

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[Doctor Gast]

Thanks Lucas for bringing this report on Lin. Looks like he can`t hit or field very well, his only forte is his versatility. Unless there is a total transformation, it looks like a waste   of   time.

Something I've advocated for a long is that we really need  a quality CF back up & a upgrade at SS,  a good hitter would be nice. If we can find some one who can fulfill both functions (which would be ideal), if we can`t then we need to find a person to fill each. The reason for our poor record w/o Buxton & Donaldson is because we can`t field an superior SS & CF back up. SS & CF are too important to throw just anyone

[mikelink45]

I think we filled some gap in the minors.  I do not expect to see him and if we do the team is going backwards.  Every player has to be better than the one before if we are serious about getting to the WS

[RedBull34]

I like this signing.  We've seen how depth is important.  Lin is that, not a frontline starter, or even Plan B.  He's Plan D, E, or F.

[lukeduke1980]

Agree with Sgt.  You need guys who can generally catch the ball at all levels.  What's the upside though

[jmlease1]

Since it's a minor league contract, I think he's seen as a utility knife in the case of a LOT of injuries to the INF. There are multiple guys ahead of him on the depth charts, but the Twins are stashing him cheaply in the minors for a year in the even that Arraez, Donaldson, Polanco, AND someone like Blankenhorn are all out with injury at the same time, so rather than scramble on the FA market mid-season they have a guy in their system already that can go to work.

 

And maybe they see something in him that they can work on with him in terms of his hitting or defense to make him more of an asset. That's the best case scenario; worst case is he's an acceptable fill-in if the infield gets really hammered with a bunch of injuries. It's depth for the depth so you aren't forced to rush in someone like Royce Lewis if you're not sure he's ready (but he's also not a guy who block Lewis if he is).

 

This is the kind of move that I think good organizations make every year as a matter of course to cover contingencies. It's not sexy and you can't rely on these sorts of moves as the only thing the team does, but as part of the overall plan it's the kind of move that makes sense to me.

 

Always give yourself options. Always look for ways to raise the floor and the ceiling.

[dxpavelka]

Ronald Torreyes