The Twins Have a Corner Outfield Conundrum

This is not as glamorous a list as the title would imply.  Let's see Buxton got in 92 games - only 58 in CF the rest DH.  Larnach had 51 games - 13 of the DH or PH.  33 LF 11 RF.  Kiriloff got in 45 games, 5 DH or PH. 18 at 1B and 28 in the OF.

Add up the games in the OF for all three - 120 games in the OF - we did not even get a full season from the three combined.  Garlick and Contreras are not starting quality.  Wallner had a late season call up and had 16 games in the OF - still not a full season. 

Gordon had 140 OF games - more than all the prospects and star had combined.  Celestino had 141 OF games.

So we have Gordon in LF, Celestino in CF, Kiriloff, Wallner, Larnach, Buxton filling the third OF position and Contreras and Garlick on the bench.  

Not really crowded.  We need to revisit this article next September. 

One thing I wish you had mentioned is the conundrum we face with so many of our corner OF options hitting left-handed, with Kepler, Gordon, Larnach, Kirilloff, Wallner, and Contreras (if you really want to include a AAAA player on this list) all hitting lefty. 

That's the main reason I'm hopeful we're able to trade Kepler for a mid-level prospect to  reallocate his $8.5 million salary to a RH-hitting corner OF with some pop -- someone like Mitch Haniger. With the current roster construction, we'll be forced to play a LH-hitting OF every game against a lefty starting pitcher unless we want to play Garlick and Celestino, which seems like a recipe for disaster, as Celestino looks like he needs some more seasoning at AAA.

It is hard to call it a conundrum when the entirety of the the OF consists of unproven youth, AAAA players, a lower end starting OF (Kepler) and Mr. Injury himself.

Hopefully one of the younger guys will take a huge step this year to spread out the pack.

At the moment, Gordon is our must trustworthy OF player. He got his chance, made the most of it, and has earned the right to plenty of innings - certainly over Celestino and others.

Gordon can hit plenty decently for average and with some pop, plus he’s strong defensively with range, glove and arm. He’s also a catalyst with his energy and speed. There is also no reason to expect Gordon has plateaued - he still has plenty of room to improve if he stays focused, disciplined and committed to being the best pro he can be.

At worst, he’s the fourth OF playing 4-5 times a week (3 of those in CF spelling BB). At best, he’s an everyday starter at a corner position and Center when BB is DHing, resting, or injured. He could be a real gem….

I was never a fan of Larnach but I hope this spring he shows he deserves to be in left field; he has good defense  numbers.

I like Gordon but he is too often a combination of Go Go Gomez (running) and Willie Norton ( fielding)  (In  Norton's defense, his fielding improved  drastically his last year but his bat disappeared.)  you are never sure which form of Gordon will show  up each game.

Contreras is an easy cut if the Twins need to make space.

Trading at least one, if not two, of Kepler, Larnach, Wallner, and Gordon, plus acquiring a RHB in their depth chart spot, seems wise, if not imperative. 

I prefer to shop Larnach and Kepler, then trade the one who brings in the most value.

First, this is why I say corner OF guys have little value in trade or FA markets, unless they are super elite hitters.  People talk about trading Kepler, but her offers little value, because many teams can fill the same position easy. 

Second, I disagree that Larnach defense is more limited, in the past that was true, but last year, when healthy he was actually a good defender overall.  

Three, I was not surprised with Gordon, he always has performed well after being at a league for a year.

I think as always, performance and injuries will fix the conundrum through the season. 

Really I'm not the biggest fan of about half of these options, like Gordon, like Buxton, Kirloff I'm high on, and Kepler. Everyone else I'm not fully convinced can be consistent starters at the big league level, except for Wallner. 

Buxton—Keep, try to use him as much as possible

Celestino—start in the minors, he has options and his bat/baserunning skills need tweaking

Contreras—either option or release, he doesn’t look good enough at the majors to be on the 40-man

Garlick—either trade or start in the minors, he should be a depth option or a small piece for a return

Gordon—looks like the Utility Player for 2023, start him on the bench opening day

Kepler—Trade off, his contract is too much and there are too many in-house options.

Kirilloff—use sort of as a utility, bounce him between left, right and first

Larnach—trade; he’s got a lot of potential but Kirilloff and Wallner look better, and Larnach looks somewhat obsolete. You could get a serious return if you shipped him off.

Wallner—keep, but start in AAA. Having 2 serious Minor-league options in Wallner and Celestino will seriously help this team stay successful, and if you don’t have as many injuries trade off someone.

To Recap:

Majors: Buxton, Gordon, Kirilloff

Trade: Garlick, Kepler, Larnach

Minors: Wallner, Celestino, Contreras

this leaves holes to fill, but this front office seems capable of filling holes correctly.

2 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

It is hard to call it a conundrum when the entirety of the the OF consists of unproven youth, AAAA players, a lower end starting OF (Kepler) and Mr. Injury himself.

Hopefully one of the younger guys will take a huge step this year to spread out the pack.

The conundrum is that all our best options are all left handed.  

Your list does not include the potential of Lewis (should the Twins sign a top-4 FA SS) and Martin after his nice AFL showing.  I am on board with trading Max and signing a LF FA hitting corner OF assuming that we need to get more right-handed at the corners.

I like our current corner OF's in the following order assuming no trades and good health...

Gordon

Kirilloff

Larnach

Kepler

Lewis (assuming not our SS)

Wallner

Martin (assuming his bat is ready and is not needed in the IF w/the Farmer add.

Garlick

I left off Celestino as I see him only as a CF backup to BB.

A: I think you greatly under estimate the shift ban will have on Kepler. Could be 30 points. B. I think you way over estimate Lanach's value. His outfield range and his arm is not major league level. Plus at the plate the league has figured out he can't hit a breaking ball!! He could turn out as bad as Sano!!

1 hour ago, MGM4706 said:

A: I think you greatly under estimate the shift ban will have on Kepler. Could be 30 points. B. I think you way over estimate Lanach's value. His outfield range and his arm is not major league level. Plus at the plate the league has figured out he can't hit a breaking ball!! He could turn out as bad as Sano!!

Were you watching the same Twins games I watched last year? Larnach had 9 defensive runs saved above average in just 331 innings, and within a few weeks he had a handful of assists, so teams all-but gave up running on him. 

Drop Contreras & Garlick from 40 man, reassign them to AAA. Hopefully you'll never need to use Contreras again. Bring up Garlick when there's a rash of LHPing, then DFA him, repeat & rinse.

Kepler could do better somewhere else, trade him if we can get a good return.

Celestino would probably benefit from starting in AAA but he took a good leap from '21 to '22. I expect him to mature more & be more grounded with continued advancement.  Wallner needs a lot more seasoning in AAA.

That leaves Buxton, Larnach, Gordon & Kiriloff and pray everyone remains healthy. FO states that they're in the market for a RH bat corner OFer. I hope they settle the SS, catcher & SP hole adequately 1st.

This team scored less than 700 runs last year.  Until that number goes to over 800 they don't have too much of anything that can carry a stick to the dish.

This may look like a conundrum to some, a logjam maybe, or even a game of musical chairs where someone always ends up without a seat.  But to this front office it looks like.......well........Tuesday.  Just another day at the office.  This is exactly the type of 40 man roster they look for; everyone jostling for positions and never staying in one too long.  Oh, they admit there are exceptions, such as catcher and SS, but otherwise they have no desire to find players that play the same position 140+ games a year.  You can't give everyone 300 - 500 at bats a year that way.  And if BB wasn't the best center fielder in the league, he would be bounced around too.  With the exception of catcher and short, all players are pegs that can be put in more than one hole, and even those 2 positions DH a fair number of times.  Starters and bench guys just aren't the vision this FO has, so it has to have a 40 man that moves around, including optioning players throughout the season.  And I personally don't know of too many teams that have 40 major league capable players sitting around the clubhouse; this team certainly doesn't.  But that is the roster they designed, so it isn't a conundrum to them.  It's just another day at the office.  

Just one of a variety of extremely humble observations.  ?

It is a conundrum to some degree. The list of outfielders mentioned is sure to cause fear amongst their opponents lol.  Many of them are fortunate to be on a 40  man roster.  IMO most of those on the list, not all, can easily be dropped.  They simply have not proven they are major league ball players.  If the oft injured can't return to the field and play 130 or more games the team is going to be in a world of hurt in 2023.

23 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Every single team can list 8 names on a corner OF depth chart and call it a conundrum by these standards.

Not many teams CAN'T list at least one name in the corner with a recent track record of above average performance.  

We got Gordon... so we escape that "at least one name" thing.

So trade off the excess... We got Gordon.  

 

Exactly!! Gordon “going back to the bench” talk is nuts. In my opinion he plays in left field every day there is a right handed pitcher and spells Buxton whenever he DH’s or rests. 40 plus starts in CF! Roughly 90 starts in LF & 6-8 games at 2nd base. 

Garlick or some fresh face right handed hitting outfielder in LF 50-60 starts.

Celestino needs to add about 10lbs of muscle mass to be considered a real option at the plate. Outfielder that hits like a light hitting infielder. He’s an OK option defensively in CF & the worst baserunner on the roster. I don’t see him making big club.

23 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

This is not as glamorous a list as the title would imply.  Let's see Buxton got in 92 games - only 58 in CF the rest DH.  Larnach had 51 games - 13 of the DH or PH.  33 LF 11 RF.  Kiriloff got in 45 games, 5 DH or PH. 18 at 1B and 28 in the OF.

Add up the games in the OF for all three - 120 games in the OF - we did not even get a full season from the three combined.  Garlick and Contreras are not starting quality.  Wallner had a late season call up and had 16 games in the OF - still not a full season. 

Gordon had 140 OF games - more than all the prospects and star had combined.  Celestino had 141 OF games.

So we have Gordon in LF, Celestino in CF, Kiriloff, Wallner, Larnach, Buxton filling the third OF position and Contreras and Garlick on the bench.  

Not really crowded.  We need to revisit this article next September. 

Can’t release Kepler, he’s part of the crowd…….can only carry 5 guys for OF on big club. Celistino’s defense is no better than Gordon - his bat is mediocre……brutal base runner. Buxton - Larnach - Gordon - Kepler - Wallner - Garlick - Kirriloff constitute OF options.

Gordon can play 90% of his starts in OF & still be rostered as IF depth. Arraez is IF depth with Kirriloff at 1st when Arraez isn’t there. Wallner can be DH & OF depth.

Need a SS or a 3rd baseman with Farmer filling the other spot. With 2 catchers, this gets us to 12 guys……13 pitchers.

Contreras & Celestino are in St. Paul or pieces in a trade.

The biggest problem the Twins have is that they currently list 16 position players on their 40-man roster.  Nine of them are outfielders and only one is a catcher.  Yes, Gordon is likely a utility guy who can play as much infield as outfield.  But there is no way they are going to go into the 2023 season with half of their position players outfielders.  Yes, a pitcher or two may be released/traded to open a spot or two for the position players.  But they still would be half outfielders.  Add that Lewis is injured to start the season and there is no question that one, probably two, of the current outfielders will not be on the roster come April 1.

Besides the health of several outfielders, the problems I see with this group is Celestino's baserunning and Wallner's defense.  I wouldn't trust either playing at Target Field, assuming the Twins want to win.  Both need more time at AAA with someone really good working to remove their warts.  

Actually, this entire discussion is premature.  We won't know how healthy AK, Buxton and Larnach are until spring training.  That will be a good time to revisit this discussion.  

So crowded that last year we ended up with Cave, Contreras, and Wallner.

May as well trade Kirilloff. Most don't seem to care enough about him to even learn to actually spell his name right after all these years.

The goal is to field a team that puts fear in the hearts of the opposition. The Twins have years invested in Krilloff, Larnach and Wallner. To me it's how high is a players ceiling and I still believe all three have a very high ceiling and can hit a LOT of homeruns. Neither of the three has had a full season to prove themselves so to give up on the now would not be prudent. 

Yes, they are all left handed but great hitters with power can overcome that. What good is a right handed hitter if they are mediocre. Krilloff is a first baseman with corner outfield/DH flexibility. I see Larnach as a LF/DH. And Wallner as a RF/DH. Both Larnach and Wallner have cannons for arms. All three have 25-30 home run potential. You can't say that about the rest of the outfielders.

So, do what you want with the rest but make sure you have someone capable of covering for Buxton in CF. I prefer to swing for the fences this year with the three youngsters and you can do what you want with the rest.  

Contreras played 24 games in the outfield , his Rdrs/yr was 24

Wallner played 16 games in the outfield, his Rdrs/yr was -34

Wallner belongs in the minors, probabaly AA.