Hans Birkeland

Over at Fangraphs, Dan Syzmborski has released his 2023 ZiPS projections, putting the Twins at 80 wins. They are a high variance team without question, and could have looked at adding another bullpen piece, but given the overall success of the offseason, that feels a bit low. I guess having a low floor is not appreciated by ZiPS and as we saw last year, the Twins’ floor isn’t pretty. Same goes for the White Sox who are projected for only 74 wins. Cleveland comes in at 83 wins, and some projections have them closer to 90. They’re new and interesting and clearly on the rise. But are they really that good?
The title of this article will tell you what I think, although it should be noted that the Guardians played excellent ball all year in 2022 and bulldozed the Twins and White Sox in September in legitimate fashion on their way to some fun playoff moments. They were also really healthy, but more on that later.
The most surprising reason Cleveland may take a step back this year is that their starting pitching has (momentarily) dried up. Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are both legit and the ace argument could be made for either one, but overall this is a rotation built more on reputation than actual merit, with its combined 2022 bWAR of 12.0 ranking fourteenth in baseball, tied with the White Sox. As another point of comparison from a different era, the top four starters for the 2000 Twins posted 15.6 bWAR en route to a 69-win season.
The top two on Cleveland’s staff are amazing and better than anyone the Twins have had since Johan Santana, so don’t confuse my point. But Cal Quantrill is merely a solid number three and was a liability in the playoffs. Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac, who both looked like building blocks just a few years ago, have regressed significantly.
“But Cleveland always finds pitching.”
Yeah we’ve all heard that. But if Civale and Plesac are injured or ineffective, expect to see a lot of Konnor Pilkington, Cody Morris and Xzavion Curry to start the year. Morris looked pretty good last year, and they have good prospects coming, led by Daniel Espino and Gavin Williams. But Espino has already sustained a shoulder injury (not his first) and is doubtful to see the majors this year, while a promotion of Williams would be very aggressive. Morris is also battling an injury. In short, there seems to be a gap between what’s here at the big league level and what’s coming in 2024-2025, which is likely why both ZiPS and ESPN rank Cleveland’s starting rotation below the Twins and White Sox for 2023. Yes, you read that right.
As far as the lineup is concerned, the Guardians made a name for themselves last year by spraying the ball around, stealing bases and doing “the little things.” Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, José Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Óscar González and Andrés Giménez represent a solid top six, but they aren’t particularly imposing. They did add a couple of bats this offseason in Mike Zunino and Josh Bell. Bell can hit, and Zunino has a good defensive reputation and impressive power, hitting 31 home runs as recently as 2021. But Bell is also streaky, and Zunino is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which has killed more careers than torn UCLs lately. The team hit for a 99 wRC+ last year, so I don’t anticipate this turning into some elite offense even if Bell and Zunino have nice seasons.
Frankly, I don’t expect the pitching to do as well, either, even if Zach Plesac is visited by three ghosts and posts a 3.20 ERA in thirty starts. The reason?.
Injuries. Injuries happen to teams. There hasn’t been a team or person in history that has been able to figure out baseball injury prevention, and I don’t think the Guardians are the first. You wouldn’t know it, though. Here’s their injury report for 2022:
Plesac fractured his pinkie punching the mound, missing a month. González missed a month with a strained abdomen. Franmil Reyes missed a month with a strained hamstring. Naylor missed two weeks coming back from his ankle injury in 2021. James Karinchak missed the first few months coming back from a shoulder injury. Luke Maile missed the first couple weeks of the season with a strained hamstring. Austin Hedges missed two weeks with a concussion. Civale did miss three separate months with various maladies. He was able to return and make a start in their elimination game against the Yankees, but that didn’t go great. All of the above were available for the playoffs, even if Civale wishes he wasn’t. The only one who wasn’t was reliever Anthony Gose, who needed Tommy John surgery. His was the only season ending injury. That is also the only carryover injury certain to affect a player’s 2023 status.
That’s it. Cleveland losing Gose was not a major issue for them, as he was a converted outfielder with 27 career innings. 
By contrast, the Twins fell out of the AL Central race while losing nineteen players to season ending injury. Not all of them were crucial, but too many were.
To be clear, Cleveland’s training staff isn’t nineteen times better than the Twins’, and their players aren’t nineteen times less injury prone. They also aren’t nineteen times better at playing through injury, despite what miserable Phil Mackey stans on Twitter might have you believe.
Cleveland was projected for 79 wins last year, but being abnormally healthy has a way of beating projection models. Other highly healthy teams in recent memory? The 2022 Orioles and Mariners, as well as the 2021 Red Sox. Any cinderella-type team usually is accompanied by a lack of IL stints, but as the 2022 Red Sox can attest, that good fortune needs to be supplemented with additional talent or things can go south in a hurry. That’s asking a lot of Bell and Zunino.
As a baseball fan, I hope Cleveland is just as healthy in 2023, because they’re a good product for the sport and their manager is a lovable legend. But a team having its entire squad available minus one fungible reliever in October is unrepeatable, a scenario about as likely as throwing two perfect games. 
The Twins didn’t have enough depth last year and it cost them dearly. But they still somehow came into September tied for first. There is year to year variance and then there is one of the most charmed teams in decades winning the lottery and everyone thinking they earned it. As fun as they are and as good as they look in the long-term, Cleveland will be an afterthought while Minnesota and Chicago battle for the division this year.

Over at Fangraphs, Dan Syzmborski has released his 2023 ZiPS projections, putting the Twins at 80 wins. They are a high variance team without question, and could have looked at adding another bullpen piece, but given the overall success of the offseason, that feels a bit low. I guess having a low floor is not appreciated by ZiPS and as we saw last year, the Twins’ floor isn’t pretty. Same goes for the White Sox who are projected for only 74 wins. Cleveland comes in at 83 wins, and some projections have them closer to 90. They’re new and interesting and clearly on the rise. But are they really that good?
The title of this article will tell you what I think, although it should be noted that the Guardians played excellent ball all year in 2022 and bulldozed the Twins and White Sox in September in legitimate fashion on their way to some fun playoff moments. They were also really healthy, but more on that later.
The most surprising reason Cleveland may take a step back this year is that their starting pitching has (momentarily) dried up. Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are both legit and the ace argument could be made for either one, but overall this is a rotation built more on reputation than actual merit, with its combined 2022 bWAR of 12.0 ranking fourteenth in baseball, tied with the White Sox. As another point of comparison from a different era, the top four starters for the 2000 Twins posted 15.6 bWAR en route to a 69-win season.
The top two on Cleveland’s staff are amazing and better than anyone the Twins have had since Johan Santana, so don’t confuse my point. But Cal Quantrill is merely a solid number three and was a liability in the playoffs. Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac, who both looked like building blocks just a few years ago, have regressed significantly.
“But Cleveland always finds pitching.”
Yeah we’ve all heard that. But if Civale and Plesac are injured or ineffective, expect to see a lot of Konnor Pilkington, Cody Morris and Xzavion Curry to start the year. Morris looked pretty good last year, and they have good prospects coming, led by Daniel Espino and Gavin Williams. But Espino has already sustained a shoulder injury (not his first) and is doubtful to see the majors this year, while a promotion of Williams would be very aggressive. Morris is also battling an injury. In short, there seems to be a gap between what’s here at the big league level and what’s coming in 2024-2025, which is likely why both ZiPS and ESPN rank Cleveland’s starting rotation below the Twins and White Sox for 2023. Yes, you read that right.
As far as the lineup is concerned, the Guardians made a name for themselves last year by spraying the ball around, stealing bases and doing “the little things.” Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, José Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Óscar González and Andrés Giménez represent a solid top six, but they aren’t particularly imposing. They did add a couple of bats this offseason in Mike Zunino and Josh Bell. Bell can hit, and Zunino has a good defensive reputation and impressive power, hitting 31 home runs as recently as 2021. But Bell is also streaky, and Zunino is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which has killed more careers than torn UCLs lately. The team hit for a 99 wRC+ last year, so I don’t anticipate this turning into some elite offense even if Bell and Zunino have nice seasons.
Frankly, I don’t expect the pitching to do as well, either, even if Zach Plesac is visited by three ghosts and posts a 3.20 ERA in thirty starts. The reason?.
Injuries. Injuries happen to teams. There hasn’t been a team or person in history that has been able to figure out baseball injury prevention, and I don’t think the Guardians are the first. You wouldn’t know it, though. Here’s their injury report for 2022:
Plesac fractured his pinkie punching the mound, missing a month. González missed a month with a strained abdomen. Franmil Reyes missed a month with a strained hamstring. Naylor missed two weeks coming back from his ankle injury in 2021. James Karinchak missed the first few months coming back from a shoulder injury. Luke Maile missed the first couple weeks of the season with a strained hamstring. Austin Hedges missed two weeks with a concussion. Civale did miss three separate months with various maladies. He was able to return and make a start in their elimination game against the Yankees, but that didn’t go great. All of the above were available for the playoffs, even if Civale wishes he wasn’t. The only one who wasn’t was reliever Anthony Gose, who needed Tommy John surgery. His was the only season ending injury. That is also the only carryover injury certain to affect a player’s 2023 status.
That’s it. Cleveland losing Gose was not a major issue for them, as he was a converted outfielder with 27 career innings. 
By contrast, the Twins fell out of the AL Central race while losing nineteen players to season ending injury. Not all of them were crucial, but too many were.
To be clear, Cleveland’s training staff isn’t nineteen times better than the Twins’, and their players aren’t nineteen times less injury prone. They also aren’t nineteen times better at playing through injury, despite what miserable Phil Mackey stans on Twitter might have you believe.
Cleveland was projected for 79 wins last year, but being abnormally healthy has a way of beating projection models. Other highly healthy teams in recent memory? The 2022 Orioles and Mariners, as well as the 2021 Red Sox. Any cinderella-type team usually is accompanied by a lack of IL stints, but as the 2022 Red Sox can attest, that good fortune needs to be supplemented with additional talent or things can go south in a hurry. That’s asking a lot of Bell and Zunino.
As a baseball fan, I hope Cleveland is just as healthy in 2023, because they’re a good product for the sport and their manager is a lovable legend. But a team having its entire squad available minus one fungible reliever in October is unrepeatable, a scenario about as likely as throwing two perfect games. 
The Twins didn’t have enough depth last year and it cost them dearly. But they still somehow came into September tied for first. There is year to year variance and then there is one of the most charmed teams in decades winning the lottery and everyone thinking they earned it. As fun as they are and as good as they look in the long-term, Cleveland will be an afterthought while Minnesota and Chicago battle for the division this year.

Over at Fangraphs, Dan Syzmborski has released his 2023 ZiPS projections, putting the Twins at 80 wins. They are a high variance team without question, and could have looked at adding another bullpen piece, but given the overall success of the offseason, that feels a bit low. I guess having a low floor is not appreciated by ZiPS and as we saw last year, the Twins’ floor isn’t pretty. Same goes for the White Sox who are projected for only 74 wins. Cleveland comes in at 83 wins, and some projections have them closer to 90. They’re new and interesting and clearly on the rise. But are they really that good?
The title of this article will tell you what I think, although it should be noted that the Guardians played excellent ball all year in 2022 and bulldozed the Twins and White Sox in September in legitimate fashion on their way to some fun playoff moments. They were also really healthy, but more on that later.
The most surprising reason Cleveland may take a step back this year is that their starting pitching has (momentarily) dried up. Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are both legit and the ace argument could be made for either one, but overall this is a rotation built more on reputation than actual merit, with its combined 2022 bWAR of 12.0 ranking fourteenth in baseball, tied with the White Sox. As another point of comparison from a different era, the top four starters for the 2000 Twins posted 15.6 bWAR en route to a 69-win season.
The top two on Cleveland’s staff are amazing and better than anyone the Twins have had since Johan Santana, so don’t confuse my point. But Cal Quantrill is merely a solid number three and was a liability in the playoffs. Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac, who both looked like building blocks just a few years ago, have regressed significantly.
“But Cleveland always finds pitching.”
Yeah we’ve all heard that. But if Civale and Plesac are injured or ineffective, expect to see a lot of Konnor Pilkington, Cody Morris and Xzavion Curry to start the year. Morris looked pretty good last year, and they have good prospects coming, led by Daniel Espino and Gavin Williams. But Espino has already sustained a shoulder injury (not his first) and is doubtful to see the majors this year, while a promotion of Williams would be very aggressive. Morris is also battling an injury. In short, there seems to be a gap between what’s here at the big league level and what’s coming in 2024-2025, which is likely why both ZiPS and ESPN rank Cleveland’s starting rotation below the Twins and White Sox for 2023. Yes, you read that right.
As far as the lineup is concerned, the Guardians made a name for themselves last year by spraying the ball around, stealing bases and doing “the little things.” Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, José Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Óscar González and Andrés Giménez represent a solid top six, but they aren’t particularly imposing. They did add a couple of bats this offseason in Mike Zunino and Josh Bell. Bell can hit, and Zunino has a good defensive reputation and impressive power, hitting 31 home runs as recently as 2021. But Bell is also streaky, and Zunino is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which has killed more careers than torn UCLs lately. The team hit for a 99 wRC+ last year, so I don’t anticipate this turning into some elite offense even if Bell and Zunino have nice seasons.
Frankly, I don’t expect the pitching to do as well, either, even if Zach Plesac is visited by three ghosts and posts a 3.20 ERA in thirty starts. The reason?.
Injuries. Injuries happen to teams. There hasn’t been a team or person in history that has been able to figure out baseball injury prevention, and I don’t think the Guardians are the first. You wouldn’t know it, though. Here’s their injury report for 2022:
Plesac fractured his pinkie punching the mound, missing a month. González missed a month with a strained abdomen. Franmil Reyes missed a month with a strained hamstring. Naylor missed two weeks coming back from his ankle injury in 2021. James Karinchak missed the first few months coming back from a shoulder injury. Luke Maile missed the first couple weeks of the season with a strained hamstring. Austin Hedges missed two weeks with a concussion. Civale did miss three separate months with various maladies. He was able to return and make a start in their elimination game against the Yankees, but that didn’t go great. All of the above were available for the playoffs, even if Civale wishes he wasn’t. The only one who wasn’t was reliever Anthony Gose, who needed Tommy John surgery. His was the only season ending injury. That is also the only carryover injury certain to affect a player’s 2023 status.
That’s it. Cleveland losing Gose was not a major issue for them, as he was a converted outfielder with 27 career innings. 
By contrast, the Twins fell out of the AL Central race while losing nineteen players to season ending injury. Not all of them were crucial, but too many were.
To be clear, Cleveland’s training staff isn’t nineteen times better than the Twins’, and their players aren’t nineteen times less injury prone. They also aren’t nineteen times better at playing through injury, despite what miserable Phil Mackey stans on Twitter might have you believe.
Cleveland was projected for 79 wins last year, but being abnormally healthy has a way of beating projection models. Other highly healthy teams in recent memory? The 2022 Orioles and Mariners, as well as the 2021 Red Sox. Any cinderella-type team usually is accompanied by a lack of IL stints, but as the 2022 Red Sox can attest, that good fortune needs to be supplemented with additional talent or things can go south in a hurry. That’s asking a lot of Bell and Zunino.
As a baseball fan, I hope Cleveland is just as healthy in 2023, because they’re a good product for the sport and their manager is a lovable legend. But a team having its entire squad available minus one fungible reliever in October is unrepeatable, a scenario about as likely as throwing two perfect games. 
The Twins didn’t have enough depth last year and it cost them dearly. But they still somehow came into September tied for first. There is year to year variance and then there is one of the most charmed teams in decades winning the lottery and everyone thinking they earned it. As fun as they are and as good as they look in the long-term, Cleveland will be an afterthought while Minnesota and Chicago battle for the division this year.

Over at Fangraphs, Dan Syzmborski has released his 2023 ZiPS projections, putting the Twins at 80 wins. They are a high variance team without question, and could have looked at adding another bullpen piece, but given the overall success of the offseason, that feels a bit low. I guess having a low floor is not appreciated by ZiPS and as we saw last year, the Twins’ floor isn’t pretty. Same goes for the White Sox who are projected for only 74 wins. Cleveland comes in at 83 wins, and some projections have them closer to 90. They’re new and interesting and clearly on the rise. But are they really that good?
The title of this article will tell you what I think, although it should be noted that the Guardians played excellent ball all year in 2022 and bulldozed the Twins and White Sox in September in legitimate fashion on their way to some fun playoff moments. They were also really healthy, but more on that later.
The most surprising reason Cleveland may take a step back this year is that their starting pitching has (momentarily) dried up. Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are both legit and the ace argument could be made for either one, but overall this is a rotation built more on reputation than actual merit, with its combined 2022 bWAR of 12.0 ranking fourteenth in baseball, tied with the White Sox. As another point of comparison from a different era, the top four starters for the 2000 Twins posted 15.6 bWAR en route to a 69-win season.
The top two on Cleveland’s staff are amazing and better than anyone the Twins have had since Johan Santana, so don’t confuse my point. But Cal Quantrill is merely a solid number three and was a liability in the playoffs. Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac, who both looked like building blocks just a few years ago, have regressed significantly.
“But Cleveland always finds pitching.”
Yeah we’ve all heard that. But if Civale and Plesac are injured or ineffective, expect to see a lot of Konnor Pilkington, Cody Morris and Xzavion Curry to start the year. Morris looked pretty good last year, and they have good prospects coming, led by Daniel Espino and Gavin Williams. But Espino has already sustained a shoulder injury (not his first) and is doubtful to see the majors this year, while a promotion of Williams would be very aggressive. Morris is also battling an injury. In short, there seems to be a gap between what’s here at the big league level and what’s coming in 2024-2025, which is likely why both ZiPS and ESPN rank Cleveland’s starting rotation below the Twins and White Sox for 2023. Yes, you read that right.
As far as the lineup is concerned, the Guardians made a name for themselves last year by spraying the ball around, stealing bases and doing “the little things.” Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, José Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Óscar González and Andrés Giménez represent a solid top six, but they aren’t particularly imposing. They did add a couple of bats this offseason in Mike Zunino and Josh Bell. Bell can hit, and Zunino has a good defensive reputation and impressive power, hitting 31 home runs as recently as 2021. But Bell is also streaky, and Zunino is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which has killed more careers than torn UCLs lately. The team hit for a 99 wRC+ last year, so I don’t anticipate this turning into some elite offense even if Bell and Zunino have nice seasons.
Frankly, I don’t expect the pitching to do as well, either, even if Zach Plesac is visited by three ghosts and posts a 3.20 ERA in thirty starts. The reason?.
Injuries. Injuries happen to teams. There hasn’t been a team or person in history that has been able to figure out baseball injury prevention, and I don’t think the Guardians are the first. You wouldn’t know it, though. Here’s their injury report for 2022:
Plesac fractured his pinkie punching the mound, missing a month. González missed a month with a strained abdomen. Franmil Reyes missed a month with a strained hamstring. Naylor missed two weeks coming back from his ankle injury in 2021. James Karinchak missed the first few months coming back from a shoulder injury. Luke Maile missed the first couple weeks of the season with a strained hamstring. Austin Hedges missed two weeks with a concussion. Civale did miss three separate months with various maladies. He was able to return and make a start in their elimination game against the Yankees, but that didn’t go great. All of the above were available for the playoffs, even if Civale wishes he wasn’t. The only one who wasn’t was reliever Anthony Gose, who needed Tommy John surgery. His was the only season ending injury. That is also the only carryover injury certain to affect a player’s 2023 status.
That’s it. Cleveland losing Gose was not a major issue for them, as he was a converted outfielder with 27 career innings. 
By contrast, the Twins fell out of the AL Central race while losing nineteen players to season ending injury. Not all of them were crucial, but too many were.
To be clear, Cleveland’s training staff isn’t nineteen times better than the Twins’, and their players aren’t nineteen times less injury prone. They also aren’t nineteen times better at playing through injury, despite what miserable Phil Mackey stans on Twitter might have you believe.
Cleveland was projected for 79 wins last year, but being abnormally healthy has a way of beating projection models. Other highly healthy teams in recent memory? The 2022 Orioles and Mariners, as well as the 2021 Red Sox. Any cinderella-type team usually is accompanied by a lack of IL stints, but as the 2022 Red Sox can attest, that good fortune needs to be supplemented with additional talent or things can go south in a hurry. That’s asking a lot of Bell and Zunino.
As a baseball fan, I hope Cleveland is just as healthy in 2023, because they’re a good product for the sport and their manager is a lovable legend. But a team having its entire squad available minus one fungible reliever in October is unrepeatable, a scenario about as likely as throwing two perfect games. 
The Twins didn’t have enough depth last year and it cost them dearly. But they still somehow came into September tied for first. There is year to year variance and then there is one of the most charmed teams in decades winning the lottery and everyone thinking they earned it. As fun as they are and as good as they look in the long-term, Cleveland will be an afterthought while Minnesota and Chicago battle for the division this year.

Over at Fangraphs, Dan Syzmborski has released his 2023 ZiPS projections, putting the Twins at 80 wins. They are a high variance team without question, and could have looked at adding another bullpen piece, but given the overall success of the offseason, that feels a bit low. I guess having a low floor is not appreciated by ZiPS and as we saw last year, the Twins’ floor isn’t pretty. Same goes for the White Sox who are projected for only 74 wins. Cleveland comes in at 83 wins, and some projections have them closer to 90. They’re new and interesting and clearly on the rise. But are they really that good?
The title of this article will tell you what I think, although it should be noted that the Guardians played excellent ball all year in 2022 and bulldozed the Twins and White Sox in September in legitimate fashion on their way to some fun playoff moments. They were also really healthy, but more on that later.
The most surprising reason Cleveland may take a step back this year is that their starting pitching has (momentarily) dried up. Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are both legit and the ace argument could be made for either one, but overall this is a rotation built more on reputation than actual merit, with its combined 2022 bWAR of 12.0 ranking fourteenth in baseball, tied with the White Sox. As another point of comparison from a different era, the top four starters for the 2000 Twins posted 15.6 bWAR en route to a 69-win season.
The top two on Cleveland’s staff are amazing and better than anyone the Twins have had since Johan Santana, so don’t confuse my point. But Cal Quantrill is merely a solid number three and was a liability in the playoffs. Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac, who both looked like building blocks just a few years ago, have regressed significantly.
“But Cleveland always finds pitching.”
Yeah we’ve all heard that. But if Civale and Plesac are injured or ineffective, expect to see a lot of Konnor Pilkington, Cody Morris and Xzavion Curry to start the year. Morris looked pretty good last year, and they have good prospects coming, led by Daniel Espino and Gavin Williams. But Espino has already sustained a shoulder injury (not his first) and is doubtful to see the majors this year, while a promotion of Williams would be very aggressive. Morris is also battling an injury. In short, there seems to be a gap between what’s here at the big league level and what’s coming in 2024-2025, which is likely why both ZiPS and ESPN rank Cleveland’s starting rotation below the Twins and White Sox for 2023. Yes, you read that right.
As far as the lineup is concerned, the Guardians made a name for themselves last year by spraying the ball around, stealing bases and doing “the little things.” Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, José Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Óscar González and Andrés Giménez represent a solid top six, but they aren’t particularly imposing. They did add a couple of bats this offseason in Mike Zunino and Josh Bell. Bell can hit, and Zunino has a good defensive reputation and impressive power, hitting 31 home runs as recently as 2021. But Bell is also streaky, and Zunino is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which has killed more careers than torn UCLs lately. The team hit for a 99 wRC+ last year, so I don’t anticipate this turning into some elite offense even if Bell and Zunino have nice seasons.
Frankly, I don’t expect the pitching to do as well, either, even if Zach Plesac is visited by three ghosts and posts a 3.20 ERA in thirty starts. The reason?.
Injuries. Injuries happen to teams. There hasn’t been a team or person in history that has been able to figure out baseball injury prevention, and I don’t think the Guardians are the first. You wouldn’t know it, though. Here’s their injury report for 2022:
Plesac fractured his pinkie punching the mound, missing a month. González missed a month with a strained abdomen. Franmil Reyes missed a month with a strained hamstring. Naylor missed two weeks coming back from his ankle injury in 2021. James Karinchak missed the first few months coming back from a shoulder injury. Luke Maile missed the first couple weeks of the season with a strained hamstring. Austin Hedges missed two weeks with a concussion. Civale did miss three separate months with various maladies. He was able to return and make a start in their elimination game against the Yankees, but that didn’t go great. All of the above were available for the playoffs, even if Civale wishes he wasn’t. The only one who wasn’t was reliever Anthony Gose, who needed Tommy John surgery. His was the only season ending injury. That is also the only carryover injury certain to affect a player’s 2023 status.
That’s it. Cleveland losing Gose was not a major issue for them, as he was a converted outfielder with 27 career innings. 
By contrast, the Twins fell out of the AL Central race while losing nineteen players to season ending injury. Not all of them were crucial, but too many were.
To be clear, Cleveland’s training staff isn’t nineteen times better than the Twins’, and their players aren’t nineteen times less injury prone. They also aren’t nineteen times better at playing through injury, despite what miserable Phil Mackey stans on Twitter might have you believe.
Cleveland was projected for 79 wins last year, but being abnormally healthy has a way of beating projection models. Other highly healthy teams in recent memory? The 2022 Orioles and Mariners, as well as the 2021 Red Sox. Any cinderella-type team usually is accompanied by a lack of IL stints, but as the 2022 Red Sox can attest, that good fortune needs to be supplemented with additional talent or things can go south in a hurry. That’s asking a lot of Bell and Zunino.
As a baseball fan, I hope Cleveland is just as healthy in 2023, because they’re a good product for the sport and their manager is a lovable legend. But a team having its entire squad available minus one fungible reliever in October is unrepeatable, a scenario about as likely as throwing two perfect games. 
The Twins didn’t have enough depth last year and it cost them dearly. But they still somehow came into September tied for first. There is year to year variance and then there is one of the most charmed teams in decades winning the lottery and everyone thinking they earned it. As fun as they are and as good as they look in the long-term, Cleveland will be an afterthought while Minnesota and Chicago battle for the division this year.

Over at Fangraphs, Dan Syzmborski has released his 2023 ZiPS projections, putting the Twins at 80 wins. They are a high variance team without question, and could have looked at adding another bullpen piece, but given the overall success of the offseason, that feels a bit low. I guess having a low floor is not appreciated by ZiPS and as we saw last year, the Twins’ floor isn’t pretty. Same goes for the White Sox who are projected for only 74 wins. Cleveland comes in at 83 wins, and some projections have them closer to 90. They’re new and interesting and clearly on the rise. But are they really that good?
The title of this article will tell you what I think, although it should be noted that the Guardians played excellent ball all year in 2022 and bulldozed the Twins and White Sox in September in legitimate fashion on their way to some fun playoff moments. They were also really healthy, but more on that later.
The most surprising reason Cleveland may take a step back this year is that their starting pitching has (momentarily) dried up. Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are both legit and the ace argument could be made for either one, but overall this is a rotation built more on reputation than actual merit, with its combined 2022 bWAR of 12.0 ranking fourteenth in baseball, tied with the White Sox. As another point of comparison from a different era, the top four starters for the 2000 Twins posted 15.6 bWAR en route to a 69-win season.
The top two on Cleveland’s staff are amazing and better than anyone the Twins have had since Johan Santana, so don’t confuse my point. But Cal Quantrill is merely a solid number three and was a liability in the playoffs. Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac, who both looked like building blocks just a few years ago, have regressed significantly.
“But Cleveland always finds pitching.”
Yeah we’ve all heard that. But if Civale and Plesac are injured or ineffective, expect to see a lot of Konnor Pilkington, Cody Morris and Xzavion Curry to start the year. Morris looked pretty good last year, and they have good prospects coming, led by Daniel Espino and Gavin Williams. But Espino has already sustained a shoulder injury (not his first) and is doubtful to see the majors this year, while a promotion of Williams would be very aggressive. Morris is also battling an injury. In short, there seems to be a gap between what’s here at the big league level and what’s coming in 2024-2025, which is likely why both ZiPS and ESPN rank Cleveland’s starting rotation below the Twins and White Sox for 2023. Yes, you read that right.
As far as the lineup is concerned, the Guardians made a name for themselves last year by spraying the ball around, stealing bases and doing “the little things.” Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario, José Ramírez, Josh Naylor, Óscar González and Andrés Giménez represent a solid top six, but they aren’t particularly imposing. They did add a couple of bats this offseason in Mike Zunino and Josh Bell. Bell can hit, and Zunino has a good defensive reputation and impressive power, hitting 31 home runs as recently as 2021. But Bell is also streaky, and Zunino is recovering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which has killed more careers than torn UCLs lately. The team hit for a 99 wRC+ last year, so I don’t anticipate this turning into some elite offense even if Bell and Zunino have nice seasons.
Frankly, I don’t expect the pitching to do as well, either, even if Zach Plesac is visited by three ghosts and posts a 3.20 ERA in thirty starts. The reason?.
Injuries. Injuries happen to teams. There hasn’t been a team or person in history that has been able to figure out baseball injury prevention, and I don’t think the Guardians are the first. You wouldn’t know it, though. Here’s their injury report for 2022:
Plesac fractured his pinkie punching the mound, missing a month. González missed a month with a strained abdomen. Franmil Reyes missed a month with a strained hamstring. Naylor missed two weeks coming back from his ankle injury in 2021. James Karinchak missed the first few months coming back from a shoulder injury. Luke Maile missed the first couple weeks of the season with a strained hamstring. Austin Hedges missed two weeks with a concussion. Civale did miss three separate months with various maladies. He was able to return and make a start in their elimination game against the Yankees, but that didn’t go great. All of the above were available for the playoffs, even if Civale wishes he wasn’t. The only one who wasn’t was reliever Anthony Gose, who needed Tommy John surgery. His was the only season ending injury. That is also the only carryover injury certain to affect a player’s 2023 status.
That’s it. Cleveland losing Gose was not a major issue for them, as he was a converted outfielder with 27 career innings. 
By contrast, the Twins fell out of the AL Central race while losing nineteen players to season ending injury. Not all of them were crucial, but too many were.
To be clear, Cleveland’s training staff isn’t nineteen times better than the Twins’, and their players aren’t nineteen times less injury prone. They also aren’t nineteen times better at playing through injury, despite what miserable Phil Mackey stans on Twitter might have you believe.
Cleveland was projected for 79 wins last year, but being abnormally healthy has a way of beating projection models. Other highly healthy teams in recent memory? The 2022 Orioles and Mariners, as well as the 2021 Red Sox. Any cinderella-type team usually is accompanied by a lack of IL stints, but as the 2022 Red Sox can attest, that good fortune needs to be supplemented with additional talent or things can go south in a hurry. That’s asking a lot of Bell and Zunino.
As a baseball fan, I hope Cleveland is just as healthy in 2023, because they’re a good product for the sport and their manager is a lovable legend. But a team having its entire squad available minus one fungible reliever in October is unrepeatable, a scenario about as likely as throwing two perfect games. 
The Twins didn’t have enough depth last year and it cost them dearly. But they still somehow came into September tied for first. There is year to year variance and then there is one of the most charmed teams in decades winning the lottery and everyone thinking they earned it. As fun as they are and as good as they look in the long-term, Cleveland will be an afterthought while Minnesota and Chicago battle for the division this year.

On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
I am Carlos’s bamboo ankle.
Yes, the Twins lost the second-most days to injury in the 2022 season, but that isn’t the whole truth. As a skeptic or a naysayer may remind you, players like Jhon Romero and Randy Dobnak led the team in days lost. However, the more significant issue was their lack of health down the stretch.
Somehow, the Twins still had a share of first place on September 4. No matter how they got there, they could win the AL Central—if they could keep pace with Cleveland. There were eight crucial games down the stretch against Cleveland, and the Twins won only one.
I am Alex’s shortened ulna.
Some days are the sort of day where the sun only comes up to humiliate you. In those eight games against Cleveland, the depleted Twins were without Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco, Max Kepler (he did start two games but was on a broken foot), Alex Kirilloff, Trevor Larnach, Royce Lewis, Ryan Jeffers, and Miguel Sano.
On aggregate, the lineup looked like this, more or less, presented with games started during that stretch, 2022 fWAR per 550 plate appearances, and 2022 OPS, for those of you who are statistically inclined:
2B) Luis Arraez (7, 2.9 fWAR, .795 OPS)
SS) Carlos Correa (8, 4.1, .834)
1B) Jose Miranda (8, 1.3, .751)
LF) Nick Gordon (7, 1.9, .743)
3B) Gio Urshela (8, 2.4, .767)
DH) Gary Sanchez (5, 1.5, .659)
RF) Jake Cave (7, 1.6, .644)
CF) Gilberto Celestino (5, 0.0, .615)
C) Sandy Leon (4, -2.5, .502)
Starter fWAR: 13.1; OPS: .701
Bench:
Matt Wallner (4, 0.8, .709)
Kyle Garlick (2, 0.3, .717)
Mark Contreras (2, -0.9, .441)
Jermaine Palacios (2, -6.4, .413)
Total fWAR: 6.9; OPS: .661
As mentioned, Kepler also started two games, and even Billy Hamilton got a start during that stretch. Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken, though. That group is not a winning team, nor is it even a treading-water team.
It is unreasonable to believe any team will play at a 90-win pace with six Opening Day starters and two top reserves on the IL. But fans can expect at least a fight. Club decision-makers should, too.
I am Trevor’s herniated core.
Since then, the front office has traded for Kyle Farmer and Michael A. Taylor, who started at shortstop and centerfield, respectively, for poor teams last year. They signed 2020 Silver Slugger second baseman Donovan Solano to a one-year deal. Joey Gallo and Christian Vazquez join the squad with a mostly healthy injury history.
These additions should help—in theory. If the exact string of injuries were to occur again, the lineup could look something like this in 2023 (presented with 2023 fWAR per 550 plate appearances and OPS, projected by FanGraphs ATC):
1B) Miranda (2.5 fWAR, .743 OPS)
2B) Solano (1.5, .711)
3B) Farmer (1.6, .676)
SS) Correa (4.4, .811)
LF) Gordon (1.8, .719)
CF) Taylor (1.8, .660)
RF) Gallo (2.0, .732)
C) Vazquez (2.6, .671)
DH Wallner (-1.0, .669) 
Starter projected fWAR: 17.0; OPS: .710    
Bench:
C) Tony Wolters* (0.0, .538)
UT) Willi Castro* (2.6, .648)
OF) Celestino (0.0, .642)
IF) Edouard Julien* (2.3, .698)**
Total projected fWAR: 21.9; OPS: .686
* denotes not on the 40-man roster
** Julien’s ATC projections were awful due to a comically heavy hit to his defensive metrics, so ZiPS was used here
Other players who could be plugged in here include Brooks Lee, Austin Martin, Elliot Soto, Kyle Garlick, Tyler White, and the rest of the veteran catchers. Some noticeable beneficial changes emerge here.
Wallner, Gallo, and Vazquez effectively replace Cave, Sanchez, and Leon as bats in the lineup. Taylor moves Celestino to a reserve role. The losses of Arraez and Urshela hurt, but Solano and Wallner aren’t awful replacements.
Another factor is the hypothetical development of upper-level-minors prospects. Wallner, for example, is a carryover from the rock-bottom roster, but in theory, he should be better than he was last year. Buzz around Julien is heating up, and he may be an impact bat in 2023.
That isn’t a given, though. Other guys like Lee and Martin may even play their way into a role that would move Solano or Farmer back to the bench, but it’s not prudent to count eggs before they hatch.
I am Jorge’s trick ankle.
If we were to exclude anyone with injury question marks, Correa would be out of the picture, replaced by someone like Martin. There would be some scrambling of the lineups, and it would hurt. If Lee is Major League ready, it might not hurt as much, though without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing, like the first monkey shot into space.
I am Royce’s twice-exploded knee.
What if every single starter on the 2023 roster is injured? How would the roster look? We can add Gordon, Gallo, Miranda, and Vazquez to the list. On the bright side, Larnach, Lewis, and Jeffers are back in the mix.
1B) Julien* (2.3 fWAR, .698 OPS)**
2B) Solano (1.5, .711)
3B) Farmer (1.6, .676)
SS) Lewis (1.7, .732)
LF) Larnach (0.2, .681)
CF) Taylor (1.8, .660)
RF) Wallner (-1.0, .669)
C) Jeffers (2.4, .684)
DH) Castro* (2.6, .648)
Starter projected fWAR: 13.1; OPS: .684
Bench:
C) Wolters* (0.0, .538)
OF) Celestino (0.0, .642)
OF) Garlick (0.6, .675)
UT) Martin (0.7, .622)
Total projected fWAR: 14.3; OPS: .664
* denotes not on the 40-man roster
** Julien’s ATC projections were awful due to a comically heavy hit to his defensive metric, so ZiPS was used here
I’m unaware of a team that can do much more than tread water without any of their starters, but this roster is one way it could shake out. Some may say that it looks better than last year’s September roster. Some may think comparing two bad teams isn’t worth considering. Others may believe that losing all hope is freedom.
I am Ryan’s contused thumb.
The goal was clear this offseason: build depth. Even if the Mona Lisa is falling apart, they must do everything possible to protect against a complete collapse, as we saw in 2022. Whoever takes the field needs to put up the fight club officials have come to expect from their guys.
It remains to be seen whether or not they built up enough depth to withstand the throes of a season. Perhaps this is what happens when you build a roster on health question marks. Perhaps no amount of depth can protect a team against losing half of their key pieces.
I’m not here to determine whether or not they did what they needed to; I just wanted to share this back-of-the-napkin mental exercise. And melodramatic prose.
I am Byron’s … everywhere.
Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Nothing is static; everything is evolving; everything is falling apart.
Do you think that Falvey, Levine, and co did enough?
 

Driveline Baseball has become something of a household name in baseball circles in recent years, as it’s extended its reach from youth baseball to the MLB level. Using the newest technology and data available in the baseball world, Driveline has its fair share of success stories among professional pitchers. In 2023, Joe Ryan and Tyler Mahle are looking to become the newest names added to the list.
Mahle and Ryan likely had very different goals in mind this offseason and each opted to take them to the pitching labs of Driveline Baseball. We often hear little about what specifically pitchers are working on during their offseason routine, but given the reputation of Driveline and the details that we’ve received, this news should be exciting to Twins fans.
Tyler Mahle
The first thought when hearing his name tied to Driveline was a recovery plan for whatever shoulder ailment ended his 2022 season. Instead, Mahle went about his business as usual this offseason, looking to make tweaks to his repertoire. Even when healthy last season, he seemed to be missing just a small piece of the puzzle.
Mahle opted to revamp his slider after the 2022 season. He has what’s classified as a slider and a cutter, though it’s fair to wonder whether both are the same pitch that classify differently at times, as the “slider” averaged a bit less velocity than the “cutter”. At any rate, these were his two worst pitches by most measures. Expected Batting Average and Slugging were markedly worse than his fastball and splitter for these two pitches, and it showed up in his platoon splits. 
Right-handed hitters put up an OPS of .784 against the right-handed Mahle, much worse than the .602 mark against left-handed hitters. It was clear he lacked an equalizer against same-handed hitters.
From the little we can see, Mahle has added more horizontal break to his slider and less vertical break. It appears to be a new look breaking ball, which is a welcome change based on how the previous one had difficulties equalizing right-handed hitters. For how well he’s performed against left-handed hitters in his career, if he can find any kind of similar success against righties, he could become a certified stud.
Joe Ryan
After being able to dominate the minors with mostly a fastball, the Twins tried to incorporate a slider to better equip Joe Ryan to start in the MLB. On the season, Ryan allowed just one less homer on the slider than he did his fastball, though he threw the slider roughly a third as much. Ryan seemed to find something to end the season, as the pitch was dominant in September by many measures including Expected Slugging and Batting Average, hard hit % etc. Ryan took that momentum to Driveline as well this winter.
For Ryan, further developing another pitch is a must. His fastball remained fantastic despite being used over 60% of the time, which means any kind of plus secondary offering would raise Ryan’s game to new heights. With the foundation he and the Twins built on the breaking ball, it’s exciting to think about what an offseason at Driveline could do for the pitch.
Ryan had more than one pitch in mind this winter. Unlike Mahle, Ryan is significantly better against same-handed hitters. His strikeouts markedly drop off, suggesting a need for a good matchup pitch for left-handed hitters. Because of this, Ryan worked on a split changeup this winter as well.
Of note, this is the same pitch that has been Tyler Mahle’s bread and butter secondary, and is a big reason for the lack of platoon splits in his career. Traditionally the pitch is a little faster and has more late life than the plain old changeup. This makes it a bit tougher to pick up by opposite handed hitters who typically have a better look at what’s coming from the pitcher. While it’s tough to say what to expect from Ryan debuting an entirely new pitch, it’s easy to look at the changeup he used just 12% of the time in 2022 and see room for improvement.
Tyler Mahle and Joe Ryan have high end upside. Both have good foundations in their repertoire, Ryan with his magical fastball and Mahle with his uncommon ability to negate platoon splits. It sounds like both went in search of the missing pieces this winter at Driveline, and it’ll be interesting to see how the new pitches look. There’s a possibility that both pitchers raise their games to new levels.

One of the quirks of the new MLB schedule is that the Twins end up playing all of their seven games against the New York Yankees in April. The Twins have had a bit of a hard time beating the Yankees in recent decades, and last year was no exception, with New York winning five of seven games.
One thing that stood out to me though, particularly in the September matchup between the teams, was how surprisingly thin New York’s lineup was. They had some key injuries by then, sure, but even when healthy only two qualified hitters posted an OPS above .800 for the year.
In the offseason, they re-signed Aaron Judge and acquired Carlos Rodón to slot in behind Gerrit Cole in their rotation. Their pitching certainly looks great, but the lineup looks exactly the same, with the team putting a lot of faith in its two young shortstop prospects settling in quickly. It almost feels like we take for granted that New York will have a powerhouse lineup. Reality paints a different picture, so I thought it would be fun to look at why the Twins lineup will outperform the supposed “top ten” lineup of the Yankees.
Looking at this position player group, the first thing you notice is they can’t start their best hitters if Giancarlo Stanton plays DH, his natural position. One of D.J. LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo need to sit unless you throw Stanton out to left field, and that doesn’t seem wise. Let’s run through their options in the lineup:
The Yankees’ best hitter is Judge, and he makes up for a lot of deficiencies. Last year, he played like two MVP candidates in one, finishing the year with a 10.6 bWAR season. He’s amazing.
Their second best hitter last year was Rizzo, who posted a 131 OPS+ with 32 home runs and mistake-free defense. He will turn 34 this summer, spent time on the IL last year, and hit .228.
Torres was next best. He got some of his power back after a few down years, but maybe at the expense of being selective at the plate, with a career-low .310 OBP to go along with his 24 home runs. Here you start to see the issue.
Jose Trevino fooled us for a little while, upselling a hot start into being the starting catcher in the All-Star game, but in the second half he settled back into who he is: an overly-aggressive hitter with little power but some decent contact ability who is good for an 85 OPS+.
LeMahieu wasn’t very good last year with a slugging of .377, an improvement on his .362 from a year before. He still gets on base, but the drop in power is a little alarming for a guy set to turn 36 next summer.
Center-fielder Harrison Bader played well for the Yankees in the playoffs, but got into only 14 games during the regular season due to a foot injury. He’s a New York guy, and he’s had a couple of 114 OPS+ seasons, but he’s not a good bet to stay healthy, having never come to the plate 450 times in a season.
As for Stanton, he’s the kind of player that the team may have cut bait with if money were no object (he is still owed 175M, 20M of that paid by the Marlins). He can no longer field and he can’t run, ranking in the bottom five percent in the league by sprint speed. He also can’t stay healthy, with leg injuries decimating his career. New for 2022? He can no longer get on base, with a .297 OBP.
Aaron Hicks and Josh Donaldson are albatrosses on this team, and they couldn’t find any takers for either contract this offseason. New York will presumably roll with the pair, who combined to hit to a .663 OPS and 23 home runs in 2022. The Yankees think both can bounce back, especially Donaldson. But he’s 37. Hicks hasn’t been good since the Rockies were making the playoffs.
Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza are big-time shortstop prospects who both figure to play roles for the team in 2023, hopefully in place of Isiah Kiner-Falefa who managed only an 84 OPS+ last year. But IKF figures to still start a lot of games, at least in April.
Add it all up and you have a solid-enough offense, but if Judge misses time, this lineup is listless and will rely heavily on its pitching staff to keep them in games. Even with Judge, the Twins have roughly as much top end talent with a lot more depth.
Let’s confirm that going player by player. Note that this assumes Stanton starts in left field, because I’m feeling charitable.
Leading off, Jorge Polanco beats out LeMahieu. Both have injury concerns but Polanco is much younger and had a much better year last year.
Judge beats out Carlos Correa. Can’t do much about that.
Byron Buxton beats out Rizzo, although that can change quickly based on availability.
I think José Miranda is a more valuable hitter than Stanton at this point, based on performance, diversity of approach and quality of at-bats. And while Stanton’s place in the lineup costs the Yankees a bat, Miranda allows the Twins to see more of what they have in Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach at first base and DH.
Torres beats out Joey Gallo pretty easily, unless you are a big believer in a Gallo bounce-back.
Donaldson is ahead of Kirilloff, but only slightly. This could swing really quickly if Donaldson continues to slide, and Kirilloff emerges from Spring Training healthy.
Bader beats Max Kepler, but Kepler also beats Hicks, who figures to play here whenever Stanton is DH. I’ll call this a tie.
Christian Vázquez is a better hitter than Trevino. Yankees fans can take solace that their catcher is probably a better defender.
Larnach and Nick Gordon both are better hitters than IKF by quite a bit. If Volpe or Peraza have strong rookie seasons and IKF heads to the bench, this is a different story.
You can quibble about a few of these in both directions, but the Twins take at least five of nine, if not seven. The fact is, the Yankees are forced to play a lot of guys with a sub .700 OPS. Worse yet, none of them have any remaining upside, outside of maybe a mild bounce-back from Donaldson.
The Twins have injury issues, but their depth has improved to the point that all four of their bench players could capably start on other teams, including the Yankees- outside of Ryan Jeffers. That helps. The Yankees can’t say the same, with only the shortstop prospects and Oswaldo Cabrera available as reinforcements.
The Yankees, with their resources, have the luxury of deciding when they need to stop investing in their offense. The Twins don’t, and still have a better projected lineup with better fallback options. The top end pitching is a different story, however. Maybe the Twins should call Corbin Burnes to tell him they’re there for him.

One of the quirks of the new MLB schedule is that the Twins end up playing all of their seven games against the New York Yankees in April. The Twins have had a bit of a hard time beating the Yankees in recent decades, and last year was no exception, with New York winning five of seven games.
One thing that stood out to me though, particularly in the September matchup between the teams, was how surprisingly thin New York’s lineup was. They had some key injuries by then, sure, but even when healthy only two qualified hitters posted an OPS above .800 for the year.
In the offseason, they re-signed Aaron Judge and acquired Carlos Rodón to slot in behind Gerrit Cole in their rotation. Their pitching certainly looks great, but the lineup looks exactly the same, with the team putting a lot of faith in its two young shortstop prospects settling in quickly. It almost feels like we take for granted that New York will have a powerhouse lineup. Reality paints a different picture, so I thought it would be fun to look at why the Twins lineup will outperform the supposed “top ten” lineup of the Yankees.
Looking at this position player group, the first thing you notice is they can’t start their best hitters if Giancarlo Stanton plays DH, his natural position. One of D.J. LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo need to sit unless you throw Stanton out to left field, and that doesn’t seem wise. Let’s run through their options in the lineup:
The Yankees’ best hitter is Judge, and he makes up for a lot of deficiencies. Last year, he played like two MVP candidates in one, finishing the year with a 10.6 bWAR season. He’s amazing.
Their second best hitter last year was Rizzo, who posted a 131 OPS+ with 32 home runs and mistake-free defense. He will turn 34 this summer, spent time on the IL last year, and hit .228.
Torres was next best. He got some of his power back after a few down years, but maybe at the expense of being selective at the plate, with a career-low .310 OBP to go along with his 24 home runs. Here you start to see the issue.
Jose Trevino fooled us for a little while, upselling a hot start into being the starting catcher in the All-Star game, but in the second half he settled back into who he is: an overly-aggressive hitter with little power but some decent contact ability who is good for an 85 OPS+.
LeMahieu wasn’t very good last year with a slugging of .377, an improvement on his .362 from a year before. He still gets on base, but the drop in power is a little alarming for a guy set to turn 36 next summer.
Center-fielder Harrison Bader played well for the Yankees in the playoffs, but got into only 14 games during the regular season due to a foot injury. He’s a New York guy, and he’s had a couple of 114 OPS+ seasons, but he’s not a good bet to stay healthy, having never come to the plate 450 times in a season.
As for Stanton, he’s the kind of player that the team may have cut bait with if money were no object (he is still owed 175M, 20M of that paid by the Marlins). He can no longer field and he can’t run, ranking in the bottom five percent in the league by sprint speed. He also can’t stay healthy, with leg injuries decimating his career. New for 2022? He can no longer get on base, with a .297 OBP.
Aaron Hicks and Josh Donaldson are albatrosses on this team, and they couldn’t find any takers for either contract this offseason. New York will presumably roll with the pair, who combined to hit to a .663 OPS and 23 home runs in 2022. The Yankees think both can bounce back, especially Donaldson. But he’s 37. Hicks hasn’t been good since the Rockies were making the playoffs.
Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza are big-time shortstop prospects who both figure to play roles for the team in 2023, hopefully in place of Isiah Kiner-Falefa who managed only an 84 OPS+ last year. But IKF figures to still start a lot of games, at least in April.
Add it all up and you have a solid-enough offense, but if Judge misses time, this lineup is listless and will rely heavily on its pitching staff to keep them in games. Even with Judge, the Twins have roughly as much top end talent with a lot more depth.
Let’s confirm that going player by player. Note that this assumes Stanton starts in left field, because I’m feeling charitable.
Leading off, Jorge Polanco beats out LeMahieu. Both have injury concerns but Polanco is much younger and had a much better year last year.
Judge beats out Carlos Correa. Can’t do much about that.
Byron Buxton beats out Rizzo, although that can change quickly based on availability.
I think José Miranda is a more valuable hitter than Stanton at this point, based on performance, diversity of approach and quality of at-bats. And while Stanton’s place in the lineup costs the Yankees a bat, Miranda allows the Twins to see more of what they have in Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach at first base and DH.
Torres beats out Joey Gallo pretty easily, unless you are a big believer in a Gallo bounce-back.
Donaldson is ahead of Kirilloff, but only slightly. This could swing really quickly if Donaldson continues to slide, and Kirilloff emerges from Spring Training healthy.
Bader beats Max Kepler, but Kepler also beats Hicks, who figures to play here whenever Stanton is DH. I’ll call this a tie.
Christian Vázquez is a better hitter than Trevino. Yankees fans can take solace that their catcher is probably a better defender.
Larnach and Nick Gordon both are better hitters than IKF by quite a bit. If Volpe or Peraza have strong rookie seasons and IKF heads to the bench, this is a different story.
You can quibble about a few of these in both directions, but the Twins take at least five of nine, if not seven. The fact is, the Yankees are forced to play a lot of guys with a sub .700 OPS. Worse yet, none of them have any remaining upside, outside of maybe a mild bounce-back from Donaldson.
The Twins have injury issues, but their depth has improved to the point that all four of their bench players could capably start on other teams, including the Yankees- outside of Ryan Jeffers. That helps. The Yankees can’t say the same, with only the shortstop prospects and Oswaldo Cabrera available as reinforcements.
The Yankees, with their resources, have the luxury of deciding when they need to stop investing in their offense. The Twins don’t, and still have a better projected lineup with better fallback options. The top end pitching is a different story, however. Maybe the Twins should call Corbin Burnes to tell him they’re there for him.

The anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, is one of the most important structures in the knee as it pertains to athletics. It’s a robust structure comprised primarily of collagen—the compound that gives ligaments and tendons their strength and elasticity—that stabilizes the knee. When the ACL is compromised—either by a partial tear or a complete rupture—the knee becomes much more unstable, particularly with rotation and highly-athletic movements such as cutting and jumping.

During a typical ACL reconstruction procedure, a portion of the athlete’s patellar or hamstring tendon is removed and inserted into the femur (i.e. thigh bone) and tibia (i.e. shin bone) in the location where the ligament was originally located. Over the span of 9-12 months, the tendon transforms structurally until it resembles a ligament—a process known as ligamentization—and the athlete gradually rehabs until they are strong enough to return to play. The majority of athletes will go on to rebound to their prior levels of success and will continue on with their careers without a hitch. But depending on the sport and type of tendon graft utilized, upwards of 6-31% will go on to either re-tear their ACL or rupture the one in their other knee. Such was the case, unfortunately, for Lewis.

The reasons why ACL re-tear rates are so high are myriad, complex, and up for debate. However, one theory that has rise to prominence over the last handful of years involves the compromise of the anterolateral ligament (ALL).

In terms of anatomical discoveries, the ALL is much like that of Big Foot, except if Big Foot was actually real. The ligament was first described in the 1870s by a French surgeon, but was not officially recognized as actually existing as an isolated structure until the early 2010s. While the ACL is the primary stabilizer against rotation in the knee, the ALL is believed to hold a role in rotational stabilization as well. It has been theorized that the ALL likely ruptures along with the ACL and that individuals who do not have their ALL repaired will continue to suffer from some rotational instability in the knee and, thus, be at a greater risk for re-injury.

Now, I don’t know for sure that this is exactly what happened with regard to Lewis. And, frankly, it doesn’t really matter. Subsequent ACL injuries aren’t uncommon. An athlete, surgeon, rehab team, front office, and coaching staff can “do everything right” and ACL re-injuries can still happen. Such is the unfortunate nature of sport.

But what we do know is that the surgery team in Dallas “basically, [did] something with the IT band,” according to Lewis to help “brace” his knee and improve its stability. The “something” he is likely referring to is known as a lateral tenodesis.

The IT band is a long, thick tendinous structure that runs from the hip to just below the knee. It’s most commonly known as a structure that gives long distance runners one heck of a time if they don’t remain flexible, but it also serves as a key attachment point for various lower extremity muscles and assists in moving the leg. 

Due to its inherent strength, it serves as a good candidate for a graft during ACL reconstruction. Additionally, the lower portion of the IT band can be surgically relocated (i.e. tenodesis) to provide rotational stability. In short, the IT band takes over for the compromised ALL to provide extra rotational stability for the knee. 

The long-term outcomes for this procedure in the athletic population, and specifically the MLB population, is unknown, but theoretically it should allow Lewis to return to play with greater stability in the knee. The recovery will still take 9-12 months, but the procedure should not reduce Lewis’s speed or power much beyond the natural regression that is expected with aging. Baseball is a fairly linear sport, which reduces the potential impact of multiple ACL surgeries on performance compared to a sport like basketball that relies on quick pivots, explosive jumping, and constant running to be successful.
 

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

At the time, it made perfect sense. Even Auburn couldn’t figure out exactly where to play Edouard Julien on the field. As a freshman, he started 59 games between designated hitter, first base, and second base. As a sophomore, he started 62 games at third base. There was no question about his bat, though. That belonged in the lineup.
His final game as a Tiger saw these worlds collide. Against Mississippi State in the College World Series, Julien hit a massive two-run home run in the top of the second inning to give the Tigers a 2-0 lead. It was a 429-foot blast to right field that, at the time, was tied for the longest in the history of TD Ameritrade Park. He later singled in another run to push the lead to 3-0. In the bottom of the final frame, the Tigers gave up two run, but still had the lead.
 
One out away. Tying run 90 feet from home. And a routine ground ball to third base. Three batters later, Mississippi State was celebrating their walk-off victory.
No one would have blamed Julien for going back to Auburn to try to help his team back to Omaha. But money - nearly a half million dollars - talks and the Twins now have one of the best guys at getting on base in all the minor leagues.
Age: 23 (DOB: 4/30/1999)
2022 Stats: (AA): 508 PA, .300/.441/.490, 17 HR, 67 RBI, 19 SB, 98 BB, 125K. (AFL) 96 PA, .400/.563/.686, 5 HR, 17 RBI, 6 SB, 23 BB, 22K.
ETA: 2023
2022 Ranking: 19

National Top 100 Rankings
BA: NR | MLB: NR | ATH: NR | BP: NR
What's To Like
The bat. The eye. The legs. Julien's entire offensive arsenal is loaded. In an offseason that saw the Twins offload Luis Arraez, the organization has a ready-made replacement. 
Julien has been able to get on base in almost 44% of his minor-league plate appearances. You could make a pretty good argument that no one is better suited to bat lead-off. He's stolen 53 bases over the last two seasons.
He has slugged nearly .500, you could argue that his bat belongs right in the middle of the lineup.
You could literally make any argument you wanted about getting Julien in the lineup because he is prolific with the bat in his hands and a lineup with him in it is better than one without.
What's Left to Work On
If you're talking about someone with an elite offensive package and he's only #5 on the team's prospect rankings, you've either got the best system in baseball (it's not that) or there is something significant that sticks out that needs to be talked about here.
The Twins - like Auburn - have used Julien all over defensively. He's started double-digit games in his career at first base, second base, third base, and left field. And as you slide down the defensive totem pole as Julien has (and Arraez did), it makes the presence of elite offensive skills even more important. Because the last stop is as a designated hitter. 
Ideally, Julien either finds a comfortable home (second base? left field?), but the most likely scenario involves him being used all over the infield and in left field. There's a lot of work to do here yet, but the reality remains that Julien is a low-ceiling defender.
What's Next
After a successful full-season run at Wichita followed by an outstanding fall in Arizona, Julien will almost assuredly start his season in St. Paul. From there, what happens in 2023 is going to be dependent on a handful of things. Assuming the bat doesn't regress, Julien will get ample opportunities to hone his defensive skills in the infield and, likely, in the outfield. But the performance and health of those above him will be the biggest factor. 
Before all that, though, Julien will compete for Team Canada in the WBC. Julien figures to get plenty of plate appearances and will likely find himself playing second base. Will he use this opportunity as a springboard for his upcoming season?
Luis Arraez got an opportunity and ran with it all the way to a batting title. Maybe that's all Julien needs too... and the defensive side will sort itself out in time.
Previous Installments
Honorable Mention
Prospects 21-30
Prospects 16-20
Prospects 11-15
Prospect #10: Austin Martin, SS
Prospect #9: Louie Varland, RHP
Prospect #8: Jose Salas, INF
Prospect #7: Connor Prielipp, LHP
Prospect #6: Simeon Woods Richardson, RHP
Prospect #5: Edouard Julien, 2B

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,

The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples:
Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent:
Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.”
He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position.
However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. 
He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years?
Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. 
After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage.
That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos.
The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson.
After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish!
“Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.”
Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history.
By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career,