2021 Report Cards: Infield

Interesting analysis, fun to think about. My biggest question is why Sano got a C-, but Gordon got a B-? I think that might be biased by expectations. Gordon looked better than expected, Sano a little worse. However, for who had the better year, I'd have to go with Sano. Neither one exactly blew the lights out, of course. If Gordon were a top prospect like Larnach I think his grade would have been lower.

Would the team have been better with Polo at SS and Arraez at 2B, rather than Polo at 2B and Simmons at SS? To me that is a close call. But hindsight is 20/20.

Sano is really hard to judge, but the fact that all his hitting came after we dropped out of any potential contention drops him to a D+ for me.  Hitting with the pressure off is not what we want or need.  He will be with us a long time and will be a challenge to judge throughout his career.

Donaldson did almost everything we asked for so I would put him up to the B+.

Simmons had a lot of lapses that do not figure in the fielding metrics he was an F for me.

Where was Arraez - he is not an OF.  He played around the IF, his hitting was down, his fielding not sensational, but he was very usable and would get a C from me. 

Again I concur with your evaluations but with Simmons you let outside opinions effect your grading. Defense I grade him at least an A. His range,  understanding of his position and his command of the INF are excellent. His hitting in the beginning of season was very good and towards the end wasn't bad. But the long period after his sickness and lay off, he was terrible. Taking all this into consideration I grade his hitting a D. His base running is pretty good. So I grade him overall a B- . 

I'm grading strictly by performance, I didn't take into considerations him not playing last year or him being sick and laid off or lack of hitting  instruction to get him back on track. My concern about Simmons (when he 1st came to the Twins) was his ankles. How dependable would he be to keep Polanco away from SS so he could thrive at 2B. He did that, he allowed Polanco to recover and blossom at 2B. Polanco also learned from him.

Simmons stock is low because of his hitting. If you have any idea about stocks, you don't buy good stocks when they are high but when they are low. Although I was hesitant to sign him last season, I would not this season. His endurance will be better and since they demoted their hitting coach. I'm betting his hitting will return to his prior avg. of .270.

Luis Arraez?

5 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Again I concur with your evaluations but with Simmons you let outside opinions effect your grading. Defense I grade him at least an A. His range,  understanding of his position and his command of the INF are excellent. His hitting in the beginning of season was very good and towards the end wasn't bad. But the long period after his sickness and lay off, he was terrible. Taking all this into consideration I grade his hitting a D. His base running is pretty good. So I grade him overall a B- . 

I'm grading strictly by performance, I didn't take into considerations him not playing last year or him being sick and laid off or lack of hitting  instruction to get him back on track. My concern about Simmons (when he 1st came to the Twins) was his ankles. How dependable would he be to keep Polanco away from SS so he could thrive at 2B. He did that, he allowed Polanco to recover and blossom at 2B. Polanco also learned from him.

Simmons stock is low because of his hitting. If you have any idea about stocks, you don't buy good stocks when they are high but when they are low. Although I was hesitant to sign him last season, I would not this season. His endurance will be better and since they demoted their hitting coach. I'm betting his hitting will return to his prior avg. of .270.

I can't disagree more strongly with this take as it's based entirely upon an emotional attachment. Simmons has posted below average error rates for 3 consecutive years now, his defense graded below average this year, continuing a massive downturn due in part to his speed vanishing and his increasingly clumsy glovework.

Simmons' sprint speed and 90 foot splits have are now placing him well below MLB average and dramatically lower than typical shortstops. The average MLB shortstop? 28.0 ft/sec. Simmons? Declined from sub-standard peak of 27.5 to 26.2 (slower than Miguel Sano's 26.5 ft/sec).

His contact rates with the bat have declined 5 out of his last 6 years from 89.1% to 84.6%, his power has declined 4 straight seasons from an ISO of .143 in 2017 to a career low .051 this year and he had 451 plate appearances this year. It's not a small sample size and the batted ball data supports the decline with declines in barrel rate, exit velocity, hard hit rates, line drive rates and corresponding decreases in expected batting average. Even his weak contact rates have increased. The metrics are absolutely across the board.

His UZR/150 looks like this for the past 6 years: 18.1, 18.5, 19.5, 13.8, 4.0, -1.1.

Simmons is toast. His career is over.

On 10/28/2021 at 1:30 PM, bean5302 said:

I can't disagree more strongly with this take as it's based entirely upon an emotional attachment. Simmons has posted below average error rates for 3 consecutive years now, his defense graded below average this year, continuing a massive downturn due in part to his speed vanishing and his increasingly clumsy glovework.

Simmons' sprint speed and 90 foot splits have are now placing him well below MLB average and dramatically lower than typical shortstops. The average MLB shortstop? 28.0 ft/sec. Simmons? Declined from sub-standard peak of 27.5 to 26.2 (slower than Miguel Sano's 26.5 ft/sec).

His contact rates with the bat have declined 5 out of his last 6 years from 89.1% to 84.6%, his power has declined 4 straight seasons from an ISO of .143 in 2017 to a career low .051 this year and he had 451 plate appearances this year. It's not a small sample size and the batted ball data supports the decline with declines in barrel rate, exit velocity, hard hit rates, line drive rates and corresponding decreases in expected batting average. Even his weak contact rates have increased. The metrics are absolutely across the board.

His UZR/150 looks like this for the past 6 years: 18.1, 18.5, 19.5, 13.8, 4.0, -1.1.

Simmons is toast. His career is over.

The gold glove committee seems to differ with your take as Simmons is a GG finalist https://www.mlb.com/news/gold-glove-2021-finalists

He was the best defensive SS the Twins have had in at least 25 while wearing the laundry. He's so fun to watch. His offense was brutal, but don't let that tint your judgement of his fantastic defense. He was absolutely a top 5 defensive SS in MLB this past season. Call me old school, but I'll take the tradeoff of offense for defense from my SS. 

3 hours ago, Minny505 said:

The gold glove committee seems to differ with your take as Simmons is a GG finalist https://www.mlb.com/news/gold-glove-2021-finalists

He was the best defensive SS the Twins have had in at least 25 while wearing the laundry. He's so fun to watch. His offense was brutal, but don't let that tint your judgement of his fantastic defense. He was absolutely a top 5 defensive SS in MLB this past season. Call me old school, but I'll take the tradeoff of offense for defense from my SS. 

It's based on DRS/Range Factor. DRS/Range Factor uses total put outs to determine how well a fielder performs, but it assumes players get he same number of opportunities to field balls. That seems pretty reasonable at a glance. The Twins use defensive shifts more than nearly any team in baseball, which puts fielders in position to have more opportunities to field balls than their peers playing the same position on other teams. Since all DRS/Range Factor really cares about is total outs recorded while assuming all fielders get the same number of chances, the shift artificially and sometimes dramatically inflates middle infielder defensive value.

From a UZR perspective, Simmons was below average, which makes sense based on his average-ish range (slow speed but good reactions) and below average fielding rate.

Simply put, Simmons' DRS/Range Factors look good because he got more chances due to the high level of shifting than many of his peers in the first place. Just the same way "Wins" once determined Cy Youngs, DRS/Range Factors are a very outdated and problematic metric now.

Simmons is an average fielding shortstop in swift decline.