Contemplating A Platoon Advantage

I'm all for some platooning. But, Arcia does not excite me as an option. They can try to hoard him on the mlb roster but he won't play enough to evolve. My opinion, prime DFA candidate and I don't mind if we lose him.

5 starters, 7 relievers, 1 backup catcher, 8 position players plus a dh. You can't afford to keep a right hand bat to play only one position and play against left handers. They have to be able to play more than one position.  That is why you can't afford to keep the Valencia's around.

I always thought Hicks and Arcia would make the perfect platoon for right field.    Arcia would play the most but Hicks would come in the late innings defense and Hicks was probably major league ready from the right side a while ago and may never be ready from the left side.     Basically , the platoon player (Hick) would fill the role of 4th outfielder.      He could spell the other outfielders occasionally quite adequately.    I I

I'm hoping Aaron Hicks has a fantastic career as a starting player.

It has been the Twins practice to roster three catchers at times or roster two utility men for the bench. Those decisions have made it very difficult for a manager to use a platoon.

Santana's versatility creates an opportunity to roster an extra corner player on the bench that might be used to platoon and pinch hit. Up the middle can be covered by Santana and Murphy and the other two spots could be bats.

Seems like Santana covers all the ground Nunez does, except third base, and Sano can step in there if needed. So you say bye to Nunez, use Santana as your super U, and you can platoon Arcia and Park in RF and DH. You could even rotate Park in as a first baseman to spell Mauer, especially if you want to bring all the big knockers in at once. 

This all depends on if Santana shows he can hit a lick in ST. If not, I say ship him to Rochester and bring up Jorge Polanco. He can hit. 

 

However, the team could benefit from giving Park the night off against tough lefties like Chris Sale and David Price.

Wouldn't they want Park to face those guys, instead of Arcia? Plus, the Twins seem to have Chris Sale's number. They rocked him last year. He dominated the rest of the league & struggled mightily against the Twins.

You just named 22 players. The roster is 25

 

All those years keeping a 3rd catcher to play once every 2 weeks, we definitely could not have found room to have Valencia mash lefties 2-3 times a week.  

 

PS: How did the Blue Jays and A's find room for Valencia to platoon, did they have an extra roster spot than us?

You would have no bench?

The reports are that the A's are going to use Valencia  as a full time 3b. Last year he had far more AB against right handers than left, hardly used as a platoon.

I'm hoping Aaron Hicks has a fantastic career as a starting player.

I wonder why.   Not in a judging way but curiosity.     I was hoping he would have a fantastic career as a starting player for the Twins .  Or as a fantastic platoon player for the Twins.    Now I hope   Murphy has a fantastic career as a starting player.   

Traditional platoons (like Pags/Leius basically sharing 3B in 91) are pretty much a thing of the past, fallen victim to the ever increasing size of pitching staffs.  As old nurse notes above, there just isn't room.

 

You can still use your bench (backup OF and IF, C) and mix/match who is the day's DH to take advantage of the platoon advantage to a certain degree, IF your bench offers that opportunity, and IF it makes sense to take the regular out of the lineup.  Dozier, for example, isn't going to sit just because there's a RH pitcher on the mound..  There's no platoon advantage possible at C for the Twins, and depending on who the 4th OF is at the moment, there may not be much opportunity anywhere else, either.  Nunez, as well, as a RH hitter typically  replaces a RH hitter in the lineup, so no platoon advantage there, either.

Of course I might be missing something but a bench should serve these purposes.    1.  Give regulars occasional days off,   2.  Provide late inning pinch running.  3.  Provide late inning power or R/L matchups.  4.  Provide late inning defense 5.  Guard against injury.   

1.  Arcia or Park can give Mauer or the Sano breaks and you will then have Mauer and Sano as bench players plus two other guys for other positions not counting catcher.  

2.   Plouffe is the only obvious guy here for pinch running replacement along with the DH's and you have Santana and Nunez for this.  Shouldn't happen more than twice a game.   

3.   Late inning power is still provided by whoever didn't start at DH and this isn't the light hitting Twins of old.    There are no obvious guys like Punto or Butera that beg for late inning pinch hitting replacements but again you have the sitting DH and Nunez.   

4.   Late inning defense will be limited to right field.    Santana is plenty adequate for that.

5.   Insurance against injury is not really that big a deal.   Any injury is likely to happen before all the bench has been used up and in that case the makeup of the bench is irrelevant anyway.

All of these things pale when considering cases like Hicks and Arcia who have splits of .800 plus OPS from one side and .600 or less from the other side.     Since the non platooning player becomes a bench player little is lost.   If we had the personnel such that the splits were that different but complemented each other I would be just fine with up to 3 spots being on a platoon basis.   A daily improvement of .200 OPS in three different spots more than makes up for any perceived loss of utility of the bench.   I know I am simplifying and missing stuff but again a difference of .200 OPS in a platoon is pretty huge.  

Can't you hope for both Murphy and Hicks? No place did he even mention Hicks.

 

Me, I want everyone to be happy and productive, so I too am rooting for Mr. Hicks to do well. why not?

His exact words were "I'm hoping Aaron Hicks has a fantastic career as a starting player." so yes, Hicks was mentioned and in fact the focus of the entire post.

As a world view I guess I want everyone to be happy and productive but if Hicks is a full time player it just means someone else is not and I am not really more attached to that unnamed player than I am to Hicks now that he is no longer a Twin.   I honestly would be just as happy if you were the starting outfielder for the Yankees and Hicks never played another inning in the majors.   Its not wishing Hicks to fail but rather not caring if he does or does not now that he is not a Twin.   I am way more of a Twins fan than individual player fan so if we trade Hicks for Murphy it is Murphy that I want to succeed and Hicks is as irrelevant to my life as Luke Hughes.  That's nothing against Luke Hughes but I don't spend my time hoping he has a fantastic career as a starting player.  .    I don't know why a Twins fan would want a not Twins player to have a fantastic career as a starting player unless there is more than just the connection that he used to play for the Twins.

Am I cold and unfeeling?   I did give you an endorsement for being the Yankees starting outfielder.

I'm hoping Aaron Hicks has a fantastic career as a starting player.

If you check a Yankees depth chart, Hicks is the 4th outfielder. He'll get lots of playing time, but he won't be a starter.

Having said that, I wish him well as well. I also wish great things for Murphy.

IMHO, it doesn't send a good message to the players if you bring north a guy who couldn't hit in AAA, and has not hit this spring.