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There was much frustration amongst fans over the decision to designate Arcia for assignment last week in order to make room for Danny Santana. Plenty of commenters voiced their displeasure in a 13-page thread here on Twins Daily.
It's understandable. These are the same fans that have watched so many players leave Minnesota and excel elsewhere. The "David Ortiz Complex" is very real as the legendary DH wraps up a Hall of Fame career that took off as soon as the Twins unwisely gave up on him. There are too many more recent examples currently on other rosters in the league.
Seeing the youth, the raw power, and the seemingly untapped potential, it's tempting to lump Arcia with some of the organization's most painful past mistakes. Don't do it.
Let's lay out a few of the facts with regard to Arcia.
He has been utterly terrible this year. In 114 plate appearances, he has batted .214/.289/.369 with 46 strikeouts. That's a 40 percent K-rate. Guys who are above 40 percent do not belong in the majors.
The only MLB player with a higher strikeout rate this year (min. 100 PAs) is Byron Buxton. It's debatable whether Buxton belongs in the bigs right now but he gains leeway because he's so young and brings so much to the table defensively.
Arcia, conversely, is approaching 1,000 plate appearances in the majors, and offers almost no defensive value. If he isn't mashing he isn't really an asset, and it's been quite a while since he has mashed.
Last year, as we all recall, the outfielder turned a short rehab assignment into a permanent banishment at Triple-A because he never got going there. Save for a brief power splurge in July, Arcia basically slumped for three months straight, finishing with a .199 average in 79 games at Rochester. For someone who had hit 20 homers with a 752 OPS in the majors a year before, it was embarrassing.
The Twins gave him a chance to make it right. Despite being tempted by Carlos Quentin's veteran bat in spring training, they stuck with Arcia, who was out of options. And while I've seen some people complaining about the team not putting Arcia in a position to succeed, that just isn't true.
Actually, Paul Molitor has been quite good about using the righty-mashing slugger in the most advantageous spots. Eighty-two percent of Arcia's plate appearances have come against right-handed pitchers, and in those appearances he has batted .202 with a 42 percent K-rate. Yuck.
Arcia is still young, but he continues to head in the wrong direction and the Twins have too many other players ahead of him that they are rightfully prioritizing. Miguel Sano, as things stand, remains an outfielder and has nowhere else to play. Max Kepler himself will be out of options next year and needs to get comfortable in the majors. Eddie Rosario has been absolutely tearing up Triple-A since his demotion – not struggling and sulking, mind you – and should be back up soon. Even Robbie Grossman is making a case as a long-term piece in some capacity.
There's no argument to be made for Arcia starting ahead of any of these guys that doesn't fall back on his production from two years ago. Keeping him on the bench was doing neither him nor the Twins any good. He played himself out of the team's plans and it isn't anyone's fault but his own.
This is not an indictment of the 25-year-old's long-term outlook; it wouldn't surprise me if he falls into the right situation and hits 30 homers in a couple of years. It's not unusual for players to reach their late 20s before they really figure things out in the majors. This game is tough.
Yet, to argue that the Twins should have perpetually kept Arcia planted on their 25-man roster until that day arrived is silly. You can quibble with the timing and specifics of the DFA move, since Danny Santana isn't necessarily a player worth giving up anything to make room for and it's only June. But there were no signs of positive change, and keeping Arcia around was only going to get tougher with more deserving players like Sano and Rosario returning to the fold.
All of the hand-wringing over the decision to designate Arcia overlooks the basic realities of the situation. You need to earn things on merit in Major League Baseball and he wasn't doing it. There is certainly a discussion to be had about how the organization may be culpable in his failure to adjust and grow as a player, especially given how many different times we've seen it happen, but that is a separate discussion.
As of this post going live on Sunday night, there is still no word that Arcia has been claimed off waivers by another club. Maybe this will all be moot. But even if he does land elsewhere, and even if he does finally turn a corner eventually, it won't be because the Twins screwed up and gave up too early.
It will be because he exhausted every last bit of patience they could show him.
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