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Are Twins' Third Base Plans for Jose Miranda a Misstep?


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It's not like Miranda went from being a 230lb slugger to a 170lb slap hitter. This is fairly normal stuff from players after their first experience in MLB: seeing what other guys are doing to get in/stay in shape, be successful, not wear down, etc.

I've seen absolutely nothing to suggest that the twins are significantly changing Miranda's approach at the plate.

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46 minutes ago, Cris E said:

This could easily have been suggested as part of an organizational move towards better health.  Improving flexibility and reducing mass might help keep him on the field, which I think everyone is particularly sensitive to after the carnage of 2022.

Regarding Miranda playing first, Plan A is still Kirilloff until he doesn't seize it. Past that, I also think they want to keep first open for whoever turns out to need it. If they have to make room for Lee or Lewis or Martin or Wallner they'll need different kinds of flexibility so starting everyone as far as possible up on the defensive spectrum leaves room on the easy end for injured or displaced guys as the season unfolds. Who knows, Polanco could get hurt and end up over there, or Wallner could shove his way into the discussion early, or Miranda could get shouldered aside by a SS.  

 

I dont see why a lot of people seem to think first base is a place to put an inept defensive player. Having played first myself it is not as easy as some people make it out to be. 

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I think that moving Miranda back to his original position, 3B, is reasonable, especially when you combine the fact that he was nothing special defensively at 1B and has much more experience at third.  A slimmer version of him will likely be a little quicker and more nimble and will likely improve his defense.  I also think that opening up 1B for a guy who seems to be very solid defensively there in Kiriloff, makes a good deal of sense.  IF (and it's a big if) he is recovered sufficiently from his wrist issues, he has excellent potential as a hitter.  If not, we have several backups there -- it's not the top of the defensive food chain.  As to Miranda, slimming down does not equate to removing strength or muscle.  Miranda carrying a few less pounds of fat will likely make him a better hitter with just as much power -- if not more if he gains some strength through more muscle.  It would be trainer malpractice to tell players "Don't worry about your body.  You don't really need to report to camp in your best condition." 

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Two posts in one day is a lot for me, and I think the OP has the right approach, but should take sequence into account.  Really, if we keep Urshela, then we probably don't get Farmer (remember when Urshela was our Plan B at SS?), and if we don't get Farmer, we wouldn't have stayed in the Correa sweepstakes as long, and Miranda is probably 1B, and then Kiriloff is LF, and I don't know what we do with Arraez.

Miranda at third maximizes our team if he can handle the position, and if he can't we have Farmer to cover it, and possibly Gordon.  Miranda at third allows Larnach to be a primary DH (not necessarily the primary DH), and our adds in the outfield give us depth, flexibility, and a potential all-world defensive 7-9.

As an aside, just scrolling through mlb.com team page for the Twins, and Miranda shows up on the depth chart as the starting 3B, 1B, and DH, so I like our options at 1B (Kiriloff, Gallo) and DH (anyone) better than thinning our team by playing Miranda anywhere but third.

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Not quite getting the clickbait comments. I see the articles on this site to be more conversation starters. I don't think they are meant to be gospel being preached. I think this article does that for Miranda, a guy who will probably never be a good defensive player. So the conversation becomes, where do you put him and what kind of physicality do you want him to have? I think it is an interesting topic, and there is no right answer. It gets complicated with Miranda as well since we have a few young players and Farmer that can play 3rd, but you 100 percent want Miranda's bat in that lineup everyday. So DH then? But you gotta figure Buxton will spend a lot of time there... so it gets tricky. Good conversation piece. Curious to see how the Twins handle it as the season unfolds. Go Twins.

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The post created some conversation - so fine.

My take is that Miranda looks better at third base than at first base. He is more familiar with third. A first baseman is involved in more plays and Alex Kirilloff has shown himself to be comfortable and competent there. The Twins know that a healthy and fully productive AK is a boost on both sides of the ball and Kirilloff is only average at best in the outfield. The players in position in April may not be there still in July. We will see how Miranda looks at third and how Kirilloff fares at first.

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This is the sort of article that makes me LONG for players to report to spring training (along with the stuff about how players will fit in team history or how this season's team fits in team history when we haven't seen a live pitch yet). But...

... to dispute the article, you cannot look up meaningful information on Miranda's defense at 1st or 3rd in MLB (on Google or anywhere else), because he has only played a fraction of a season; his rookie season being put in a fairly new position most of the time, and filling in occasionally at third. His minor league history shows he might be a decent if not great defender; it for sure shows he can excel at the plate playing third (see his 2021 batting stats).

If you want to get all metric, don't forget that most defensive metrics rated Gio well below average. Plus, this just in, players often get better as they gain experience.

Every spring training (at least in my lifetime) features stories about players who worked on their diets and fitness routines to get better, stronger, and have the ability to maintain performance through the year. Actual performance varies, and until we see Miranda playing we won't know if a) it is true, b) it hurts/helps, or c) we can't be sure. But we can at least know that Miranda himself was worried about wearing down last year (borne out statistically), and (maybe) has done something about it. Most elite athletes at some point realize they have to take care of themselves to max out, so I see this as promising until there is evidence to the contrary. (Correa may be setting the example here as Cruz did before, and both of those players did/are doing pretty well with a better diet and workout regime.)

I loved Gio, but he is gone, and I get the strategy, especially with Correa signed. We have a multitude of top prospects who right now play infield, are already or soon will be on the 40-man, and therefore need to be final-polished/played/written down/traded. And having solid, but at their ceiling infield veterans blocking them starts to be a hindrance. (I feel the same about Gallo if he just plays career average this year.)

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16 minutes ago, South Dakota Tom said:

Two posts in one day is a lot for me, and I think the OP has the right approach, but should take sequence into account.  Really, if we keep Urshela, then we probably don't get Farmer (remember when Urshela was our Plan B at SS?), and if we don't get Farmer, we wouldn't have stayed in the Correa sweepstakes as long, and Miranda is probably 1B, and then Kiriloff is LF, and I don't know what we do with Arraez.

Miranda at third maximizes our team if he can handle the position, and if he can't we have Farmer to cover it, and possibly Gordon.  Miranda at third allows Larnach to be a primary DH (not necessarily the primary DH), and our adds in the outfield give us depth, flexibility, and a potential all-world defensive 7-9.

As an aside, just scrolling through mlb.com team page for the Twins, and Miranda shows up on the depth chart as the starting 3B, 1B, and DH, so I like our options at 1B (Kiriloff, Gallo) and DH (anyone) better than thinning our team by playing Miranda anywhere but third.

I think you make a good point. We need to go back in time a little bit to understand the Urshela decision. At the time Arraez was penciled in at first as his trade was not a "fait accompli" so if kept, it would have been some type of time share between. Arraez, Kirilloff and Miranda at first. Far from ideal.  Also the Twins wanted a viable shortstop backup and Urshela for all intents and purposes was a third baseman only.  Miranda seemed blocked in that situation and his bat was valuable in the lineup.  They removed Urshela for the swiss army knife Farmer and things looked better. 

In the end they did move Arraez as well and I guess that is where we come back to the Urshela controversy to some degree but it all looked very different before the Arraez trade IMO.  There really wasn't room for Urshela if the Twins were keeping Arraez.  Farmer also filled more defensive holes which was needed as well. 

I like Urshela and he is a very good player.  I wish the Twins could have found a better return but he didn't fit this roster all that well IMO.

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2 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

As I have stated elsewhere, the Miranda risk was mitigated when Correa came back with Farmer already in the fold.

I am ok with giving Miranda a chance to hold down that position.  On offense, he still needs to prove it by having a decent sophomore season.  There are many fallbacks if Miranda fails.  Beyond Farmer, you have Gallo (100 games at 3B) and Gordon, along with any of the young infielders looking make their name.

Dan, Do you believe in the sophomore jinx? If so, why does it exist? What type of player is immune to this second year slump? 

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Whatever the Twins plans are it will happen in steps. Miranda first needed to gain as much speed as possible to be able to hit more doubles. His MLB value is as a hitter and every base counts towards pro success. He wants to be able to keep hanging with Correa in the bigs! There's no room for regression. If Miranda plays 3B then it's probably out of necessity on a game by game basis because every player is only one play away from being injured, or a day away from illness due to covid. Every position needs multiple backups, and pros need to be the best ball players that they can be to make more money. Miranda has a lot of upside and fan appeal. He needs to protect his career by staying healthy and producing results on the field in any position that he plays. 

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As mentioned, we're at that point of the off-season.  We're all ready to just engage in the game.  Miranda will make all the plays he needs to and having Correa next to him will only help (both on the field, for the learning curve, and mindfully as well).  He will learn and he will prove whether he's worthy of holding the position or moving off when others show up.  Let the kid play.

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Twins Daily Contributor

An interesting trend I'm seeing in the comments is that bulk doesn't equal power. I would argue it's heavily correlated at the very least, Buxton is an outlier as a more wiry power hitter but it was also documented he bulked up to try and improve his health and his power numbers took a step forward. It's just weird to lose weight and hit more homers and doubles or maintain the same production.

Again, I want to emphasize I love Miranda and I love his bat. I hope we are taking this course of action because it is best for Jose Miranda and we aren't just trying to fill a need.

I appreciate all of your comments, spring training is around the corner and I'm excited to see what this team can do. Lots of fun storylines to follow and I know we'll all be a little happier with some sunshine and baseball.

Go Twins! 

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2 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Dan, Do you believe in the sophomore jinx? If so, why does it exist? What type of player is immune to this second year slump? 

I wouldn't call it a jinx.  Pitchers go through it, most hitters go through it.  After a while teams learn more and more about the new players and start making adjustments.  It takes longer for some players than others.  Some players acclimate to those adjustments, some don't.  A name that fits this bill is Kennys Vargas.  He got off to a torrid start, pitchers found him out and he couldn't adjust.

Other factors can contribute to this as well: complacency, changes in approach, expectation anxiety.  There is also the small sample size issue:  holes can start to show the longer they play.

I am not saying he is going to fail, but expectations need to be tempered.  He still needs to prove it

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24 minutes ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Alex, I know you played a lot of baseball. I'll ask you if you believe in the sophomore jinx for major league players? Do you think certain types of players are more susceptible to it (such as hitters who can't lay off a high fastball) as the competition learns the sophomores' weaknesses? 

For me, the sports psychology aspect of this has the most impact. I don't think a certain player type of player is more likely to slump in year two because realistically their ability is what it is. They can train and improve on things obviously but everyone at the end of the day has a finite amount of baseball ability. If they did it once they should be able to do it again barring their body's physical ability to perform the task.

So think of it like this- A rookie player has a nice year or even a spectacular year and they're in the trenches of the season and they get to the finish line of a long season and it's a bit of a blur. 

They're now out of the trenches, they're proud of what they accomplish (rightfully so) then expectations for the follow up creep in. Whether it comes from coaches, family/friends or most likely themselves. It's a lot of pressure to do more when realistically you just want to keep doing the same thing and naturally progress and build on what you did.

Some guys deal with imposter syndrome as well. That's a very powerful thing, where players lose confidence because maybe they think they over achieved.

Players have a ton of resources now and are much better equipped to handle the mental strain of a season or new expectations but it's hard. I think the sophomore slump is very real from a mental performance stand point.

You see it with teams in general as well. We saw it with the White Sox last year and the Orioles are a candidate to battle this as well. Sometimes wanting it too much can get in your way. New expectations are hard to deal with but not impossible.

The superstition of it I do not believe. The sports psychology piece, yes very much so. The human mind's impact on performance is endlessly fascinating, I could go on and on but I should limit my ramblings haha.

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Any way you  look at this situation it seems like the Twins are doing everything wrong here. If they expect Lee to be 3rd baseman next season they should have left Miranda at 1st base now. I don't think it makes much sense to keep moving a player back and forth between positions like this. Leave him in one place and let him be. 

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30 minutes ago, Alex Boxwell said:

For me, the sports psychology aspect of this has the most impact. I don't think a certain player type of player is more likely to slump in year two because realistically their ability is what it is. They can train and improve on things obviously but everyone at the end of the day has a finite amount of baseball ability. If they did it once they should be able to do it again barring their body's physical ability to perform the task.

So think of it like this- A rookie player has a nice year or even a spectacular year and they're in the trenches of the season and they get to the finish line of a long season and it's a bit of a blur. 

They're now out of the trenches, they're proud of what they accomplish (rightfully so) then expectations for the follow up creep in. Whether it comes from coaches, family/friends or most likely themselves. It's a lot of pressure to do more when realistically you just want to keep doing the same thing and naturally progress and build on what you did.

Some guys deal with imposter syndrome as well. That's a very powerful thing, where players lose confidence because maybe they think they over achieved.

Players have a ton of resources now and are much better equipped to handle the mental strain of a season or new expectations but it's hard. I think the sophomore slump is very real from a mental performance stand point.

You see it with teams in general as well. We saw it with the White Sox last year and the Orioles are a candidate to battle this as well. Sometimes wanting it too much can get in your way. New expectations are hard to deal with but not impossible.

The superstition of it I do not believe. The sports psychology piece, yes very much so. The human mind's impact on performance is endlessly fascinating, I could go on and on but I should limit my ramblings haha.

Players that have exceptional years often revert to their normal performance. That is the main source of the belief in a sophomore slump.....people see someone that had a great year have a very good or average year. NO one talks about the players that take a step up getting a sophomore boost.....

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5 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Players that have exceptional years often revert to their normal performance. That is the main source of the belief in a sophomore slump.....people see someone that had a great year have a very good or average year. NO one talks about the players that take a step up getting a sophomore boost.....

Yes, observer psychology is definitely a thing as well.

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Mookie Betts is listed at 5'9" and 180 pounds.  He hit 35 dingers for the Dodgers last year.  Let's not worry obsessively about a power hitter's weight being too low.

I don't know how seriously to take public statements by and about players, but in Do-Hyoung Park's recent article where Correa was credited with the "sexy" comment there were a few useful nuggets, one of which was Miranda laying off of chocolate.  Losing a bit of weight and then putting on muscle to replace it may not be a linear process and it could be "one step back before two steps forward" and might require more than one off-season to really see through to completion.

But his batting stats for the last couple of months of the season were not good enough for a bat-first guy and in the above article Miranda acknowledged that.  He chalked it up to conditioning for the long major league season, basically.  The change discussed here stands to help on that.

His defensive metrics stunk whether he was at third or at first.  b-r.com's defensive WAR for him is overall negative and he spent many more innings at first, so moving to first was no cure-all, which I think matches the eye-test.

So DH him forever?  The DH spot is used in various ways by different teams.  Often it's a place to cycle through position players who need a day of partial rest or to hide an injury.  A few teams have a hitter strong enough to devote that spot to him nearly exclusively; but the bar is set incredibly high for such a player to be a difference maker for a team with aspirations to contend.  Nelson Cruz was such a bat, but they are rare.  To tag Miranda with that label so soon is IMO a bigger risk to his career (not to mention the team's playoff aspirations) than letting him try to continue to develop in the field. 

Terry Ryan during his second tenure ran afoul of loading up with too many "and if all else fails, he can DH" types, mostly because they were cheap to acquire or to pay.  Ryan Doumit and Josh Willingham resided on the same roster two years running, for example.  Trouble is they can't all DH at once, and now you have hardening of the arteries in the rest of your roster.  There's a real opportunity cost to how the DH is used because it's literally the last resort for every single player (last year Byron Buxton of all people, for example). 

If Miranda ends up weighing less, it wasn't the kind of weight that would help a player in the first place.  At least, I never heard of anyone eating chocolate to get stronger and hit more homers.  So cutting that out, even if said a little in jest in that article rather than literally, seems constructive.

The young man doesn't turn 25 until mid-season.  We still don't know what he can be.  If he's dedicated to improving in an important aspect of his game, don't stop him.  I'm pretty content to trust the team's judgment on this change in his diet combined with a better workout regimen

.

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1 hour ago, Alex Boxwell said:

For me, the sports psychology aspect of this has the most impact. I don't think a certain player type of player is more likely to slump in year two because realistically their ability is what it is. They can train and improve on things obviously but everyone at the end of the day has a finite amount of baseball ability. If they did it once they should be able to do it again barring their body's physical ability to perform the task.

So think of it like this- A rookie player has a nice year or even a spectacular year and they're in the trenches of the season and they get to the finish line of a long season and it's a bit of a blur. 

They're now out of the trenches, they're proud of what they accomplish (rightfully so) then expectations for the follow up creep in. Whether it comes from coaches, family/friends or most likely themselves. It's a lot of pressure to do more when realistically you just want to keep doing the same thing and naturally progress and build on what you did.

Some guys deal with imposter syndrome as well. That's a very powerful thing, where players lose confidence because maybe they think they over achieved.

Players have a ton of resources now and are much better equipped to handle the mental strain of a season or new expectations but it's hard. I think the sophomore slump is very real from a mental performance stand point.

You see it with teams in general as well. We saw it with the White Sox last year and the Orioles are a candidate to battle this as well. Sometimes wanting it too much can get in your way. New expectations are hard to deal with but not impossible.

The superstition of it I do not believe. The sports psychology piece, yes very much so. The human mind's impact on performance is endlessly fascinating, I could go on and on but I should limit my ramblings haha.

Very interesting. Thanks Alex.

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1 hour ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

I wouldn't call it a jinx.  Pitchers go through it, most hitters go through it.  After a while teams learn more and more about the new players and start making adjustments.  It takes longer for some players than others.  Some players acclimate to those adjustments, some don't.  A name that fits this bill is Kennys Vargas.  He got off to a torrid start, pitchers found him out and he couldn't adjust.

Other factors can contribute to this as well: complacency, changes in approach, expectation anxiety.  There is also the small sample size issue:  holes can start to show the longer they play.

I am not saying he is going to fail, but expectations need to be tempered.  He still needs to prove it

Thank you for your interesting reply. Your explanation makes sense. 

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I'm still a little confused Alex.  Are you saying that the Twins are negatively impacting his power by playing him at 3B but if they played him at say 1B he would be fine power wise?

Or are you saying that Miranda negatively impacted his power by losing weight?

It sounds like you are saying both but I am not sure.

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3 hours ago, Alex Boxwell said:

An interesting trend I'm seeing in the comments is that bulk doesn't equal power. I would argue it's heavily correlated at the very least, Buxton is an outlier as a more wiry power hitter but it was also documented he bulked up to try and improve his health and his power numbers took a step forward. It's just weird to lose weight and hit more homers and doubles or maintain the same production.

Again, I want to emphasize I love Miranda and I love his bat. I hope we are taking this course of action because it is best for Jose Miranda and we aren't just trying to fill a need.

I appreciate all of your comments, spring training is around the corner and I'm excited to see what this team can do. Lots of fun storylines to follow and I know we'll all be a little happier with some sunshine and baseball.

Go Twins! 

Did you ever see Henry Aaron bat?  Especially when he was younger?

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