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

[Beast]

They’re finding a way to get a promising prospect in the lineup.  People are up in arms if they don’t do this.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess.

Gio Urshela is an OK player.  But, he’s not the answer to anything.  If he was, he’d still be a Yankee. This team isn’t going to win or lose because of Gio freaking Urshela.

They can easily give him 1B or DH time if it doesn’t work at third.  It’s not like he would be playing SS or CF.  What development is he missing out on?  He’ll be 25 this June.  You want him playing 2nd base or DHing for St. Paul?  Why is that less risky?  Then you’d be upset that he’s taking time from Julien.

As mentioned, they also have solutions for 3B outside of Miranda.  Either Lewis or Lee is 100% ending up at 3rd.  If one of them doesn’t, it’s because Correa moved there.

Everyone would be screaming about “blocking” prospects if they’d signed someone to play 3rd.  They’d also be upset because free agent contracts are too risky. If they hand over the keys to a prospect it’s also too risky.  We don’t want Miranda at third with his track record, but we want the significantly lesser track record of Nick Gordon and his shoddy defense to start a premium offensive position.  I’m confused.

Im fine with it, is the short answer.

[stringer bell]

Miranda has primarily been a third baseman in his minor league career. From what I've read, he's never profiled as better than satisfactory there. He did enough last year to be considered a success and be penciled in as a full-time regular. I don't disagree with that. However, before the season is over he could be a man without a position and a logical trade chip. Martin, Lee and Lewis, who are still considered prospects, but any of them could fill his position at third base, so there are a lot of possibilities for making Miranda's regular status at third a one-year or less experiment. 

If Jose is supplanted at third, he is then in competition with the likes of Kirilloff, Larnach and Gordon for DH at bats and specifically Kirilloff for time at first base. Kirilloff is the better defender and has the better hitting pedigree (limited MLB success) and hits lefty so he may have the edge on Miranda (if he's healthy). 

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

I see people use "defensive WAR" and that's always a trigger for me that they're not using the information correctly.

I don't think what I said is at odds with your deeper look at the numbers.  It seemed unlikely that "good" performance at either location on the diamond could be lurking anywhere inside Miranda's negative aggregate dWAR in 2022.  So I left it at that and didn't bother to go deeper.  (I think we both left out mentioning that dWAR assigns a negative value to each inning as a DH so that definitely clouds the picture except for taking a quick look.)

The fundamental problem with defensive stats is not which tool you choose, but sample size.  Batting stats over the full course of a season are thought to be meaningful, and I'm convinced it's not simply that a full time player shows his abilities during 700 plate appearances, but through a few thousand individual pitches that he sees and uses his judgment and skill on.  Those pitches are what I see as equivalent to fielding chances on defense - Buxton recognizing (or not!) a breaking pitch that's destined to be low and should be laid off is about on a par with tracking a deep fly ball in the gap with the wind blowing (that Byron hauls in with deceptive ease).  Buxton doesn't get thousands of repetitions on defense like he does at bat, because nobody does, but he's good enough that we don't really need defensive stats to appreciate him.

So, I like the analytic approach to things but sometimes the data just isn't there and the eye test needs to hold sway (and I maintain that you can do sound analytics using eye tests and other coarse forms of information gathering when statistically reliable samples aren't possible).  Defense falls into that category for me, and I use any numbers I see as only a first-order guide - I think you did similarly when suggesting a 20-run range for Miranda's work last year.  That doesn't mean you can't glean tentative opinions from small data samples - we didn't need thousands of pitches to determine that Pedro Florimon would be a bad hitter in the majors and you'd be hard pressed to find a 150 PA consecutive sample from the Florimonster that could fool you into thinking otherwise, nor did anyone need to suggest a caveat that his offense might actually have been 10 runs better than his numbers showed.  Ditto for defensive stats - you can get some value from them - but they are inherently more prone to have little blips, such as a young 3Bman having stats that fluctuate or make him seem better at 3rd than at 1st over the course of far less than a season at either spot.

Bottom line for me still is, Miranda's not yet 25 and he might have it within him to become a positive contributor to a contending team at third.  His uninspiring stats in 2022 are worrisome but not enough for me to give up on him, and we have the springtime "feel good" story involving Correa's term "sexy" to suggest there could be substance to that hope.  Every player is arriving at Ft Myers in the best shape of his life, after all - they can't print that in the newspaper if it isn't true! 

[h2oface]

For a dedicated player to get himself in better shape to be considered an organizational thing, or that he was directed to, I find comical. We are not talking Sano or Panda or Prince Fielder here. And since when does loose fat correlate to power more than a thinner but more muscular body? Never. Miranda cares, and is not lazy. It just makes sense for all players to try to be in better shape. They know it. Everybody knows it, unless they are just in denial. Plus, muscle weighs more than fat. One could weigh the same, but replacing the fat with muscle would result in a much leaner looking man.

[DocBauer]

11 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Absolutely.

Having too many players is never a problem.

Every club should strive for having too many players. 

No club should ever purposely get in the way of not reaching that goal. 

I KNOW it's slightly off topic, but when I read this, I couldn't help but reflect on the current 40 man roster and many of the top 10-20 prospects and just speculate about the Twins immediate future timeline. 

Position player wise, there are some givens such as Buxton, Vazquez, Jeffers, Correa, AND Miranda. I LOVE Polanco, but not sure I can make him  "given" right now. While we still have to see better health...doesn't the worm have to turn at some point?...both Larnach and Kirilloff have been TOP prospects for a reason. And they've both looked very good in SSS when on the field. Lewis has already shown how good he might be at ANY position if his "smaller" injury is over and done. Lee looks like the real deal. How can anyone argue that Julien doesn't look like a future ML player? The jury is still out on Wallner and Martin. But the potential of Martin is real...OF and table setter and forget him being a 25+HR hitter for now...and Wallner needs some defensive improvement,  but the bat has the potential to play at the ML level. He showed growth week by week and month by month in 2022. He didn't look out of place in his debut. He's got a chance. And I'm not even going to mention Celestino getting most, or all, of 2023 at AAA to refine his game and get back on track as a possibly good 4th OF offering.

Position player wise, this team could have a very talented team now, in 2024 and beyond, and cost controlled, even with a few question marks.

And I'm deliberately ignoring pitching as the OP is about Miranda, and the player roster. 

I restate, does it matter if Miranda can be a solid 3B and potentially be replaced by Lewis or Lee in the next year or so? No. Hell, someone might be traded. And if not, he can be outstanding as a 3B/1B/DH. That's not a bad thing! Do I want to see Polanco, one of my favorite players, moved? No. But it could happen in the next year or so because of the young talent knocking on the door.

It's NEVER a bad thing when you appear to have "too much talent".

 

[Riverbrian]

10 hours ago, DocBauer said:

I KNOW it's slightly off topic, but when I read this, I couldn't help but reflect on the current 40 man roster and many of the top 10-20 prospects and just speculate about the Twins immediate future timeline. 

Position player wise, there are some givens such as Buxton, Vazquez, Jeffers, Correa, AND Miranda. I LOVE Polanco, but not sure I can make him  "given" right now. While we still have to see better health...doesn't the worm have to turn at some point?...both Larnach and Kirilloff have been TOP prospects for a reason. And they've both looked very good in SSS when on the field. Lewis has already shown how good he might be at ANY position if his "smaller" injury is over and done. Lee looks like the real deal. How can anyone argue that Julien doesn't look like a future ML player? The jury is still out on Wallner and Martin. But the potential of Martin is real...OF and table setter and forget him being a 25+HR hitter for now...and Wallner needs some defensive improvement,  but the bat has the potential to play at the ML level. He showed growth week by week and month by month in 2022. He didn't look out of place in his debut. He's got a chance. And I'm not even going to mention Celestino getting most, or all, of 2023 at AAA to refine his game and get back on track as a possibly good 4th OF offering.

Position player wise, this team could have a very talented team now, in 2024 and beyond, and cost controlled, even with a few question marks.

And I'm deliberately ignoring pitching as the OP is about Miranda, and the player roster. 

I restate, does it matter if Miranda can be a solid 3B and potentially be replaced by Lewis or Lee in the next year or so? No. Hell, someone might be traded. And if not, he can be outstanding as a 3B/1B/DH. That's not a bad thing! Do I want to see Polanco, one of my favorite players, moved? No. But it could happen in the next year or so because of the young talent knocking on the door.

It's NEVER a bad thing when you appear to have "too much talent".

 

Amen to all of that. 

Young players like Miranda, Kirilloff and Larnach will not become givens with a bowling pin mentality to roster construction. If Miranda struggling at 3B and needing to play 1B knocks Kirilloff over like a bowling pin because playing time becomes this impossible issue. We will severely handicap ourselves reaching too much talent. 

Those 10 to 20 prospects that you mention will never get here if you can't figure out how to make an adjustment to Miranda or adjustments to the 10 to 20 prospects.  

We will never get to "Too much talent" if we look at Kepler and Gallo on the same roster and think a trade has to happen because you have too much talent. 

 

[miller761]

The real question is can he make the necessary adjustments to how pitchers pitched him the last part of the season. Weight or muscle mass will mean nothing if he doesn't. If he does make the adjustments we will have so many other positive things to talk about.