stringer bell

1: Baldelli showed confidence in Duffey, and it paid off.
Confirmation bias runs rampant in sports fandom, and it's one reason that every coach, manager, and official reliably receives an undue share of criticism. In recognizing this, it's only fair to give Rocco Baldelli his due.
I wrote earlier this week, following Tyler Duffey's second costly meltdown of this young season, that Baldelli should act quickly in reducing the veteran's bullpen role. This was less a reaction to Duffey's two bad outings this year and more with an eye toward his overall regression since 2020. He just seems to have lost a ton.
Alas, Baldelli turned back to Duffey in a big spot on Friday night. With the Twins down 1-0 in the eighth inning and the top of Chicago's order due up, Duffey took the ball and mowed 'em down. He struck out Tim Anderson and Leury Garcia before inducing a groundout from José Abreu. 
Threat neutralized. And along with it, the angry mob. For now. 
2: Correa finally caught a break.
The game started in signature fashion for Carlos Correa. He worked a good first AB against Michael Kopech before smashing a hard drive up the middle ... straight to the shortstop for a double play – his league-leading fifth of the season to quash a modest budding rally.
Correa hasn't looked great at the plate by any means, and his whiff rate says it all. But he's also been dealing with some rotten luck. His exit velocities and hard-hit rates are near the top of the charts, but so often the outcomes have resembled the above.
So it was nice to see fortune finally tilt in his favor in the eighth inning. With runners on the corners and two outs, Correa drilled a 98-MPH one-hopper into the hole between short and third. Anderson made a nice play on it to his right, but his off-balance throw to first missed wide and chaos ensued.
By the end of it all, the Twins were in the lead and Correa was pumping up his teammates in the dugout. It was an unorthodox way to finally come through for the new team but we'll take it.
3: Baseball sure is a boring product right now.
I guess Correa's eventful infield hit could be described as exciting, but there have been few such moments in the many innings of baseball played this week. What a dull and dreary product fans are receiving these days.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have it. I realize that Major League Baseball could've easily been absent from our lives at this point, had the lockout not mercifully ended in March. But the quality of the play has just been really sub-par, with dead-ball era vibes across the league, and Friday was a perfect encapsulation.
The Twins have been a big mess lately, yet Chicago was only messier. The winning runs scored on sloppy defensive plays, and the game featured a familiar lack of compelling offensive sequences. 
I was watching on TV with a few friends who are – I would say – at least moderate Twins fans. None of them could even sustain their attention on the ninth inning of a tightly contested one-run game. Even as a total diehard who revels in every intricacy of the game, I could feel their pain. 
It was a drag to watch. In the waning moments of a game where seemingly nothing ever happened, Emilio Pagán was battling through never-ending at-bats up until he finally escaped his self-made mess with a borderline strike three call. 
It was an unfulfilling end to an unfulfilling victory. I hope better days are ahead.

Last offseason, the Twins made the decision to move Jorge Polanco to second base. They wanted better defense at the shortstop position. With that in mind, the Twins signed Andrelton Simmons to a one-year deal. It didn’t go well. While Simmons provided the solid defense, he did very little with the bat. His .558 OPS was over .100 lower than it had been in all but one of his previous nine MLB seasons. His previous low was .617 in 2014. Even after his rough 2021 season, his career OPS of .683 should make the Twins consider bringing him back on a much lower contract, maybe in the $3 million range. 

courtesy Byron Buxton Instagram 
However, there was a shortstop that became available due to Friday’s roster transactions. One would be a player returning to the organization that he spent nearly a decade in and made his big-league debut with. Let’s discuss both, and then in the comments you can tell me if this player should be considered. 
But before that, I want to point out that my personal opinion is that the Twins need to spend available dollars this offseason on pitching. So while I would love to see the Twins grab one of those big-name, big-dollar free agent shortstops, I’m going to assume that they won’t and that they will spend big on pitching. (maybe not a fair assumption, but one that I will go with for this article.)
Niko Goodrum
According to MLB Trade Rumors, Niko Goodrum was projected to make $2.9 million in 2022 through arbitration. He wasn’t going to get that coming off of an injury-plagued 2021 season in which he hit just .214/.292/.359 (.651) with 11 doubles and nine home runs. He had several stints on the Injured List with calf and groin injuries. 
In the Covid-shortened 2020 season, he hit just .184/.263/.335 (.598) with seven doubles and five home runs. These two seasons have been rough for Goodrum offensively, no doubt, but still 10-20% better than what Simmons provided in 2021. 
That’s obviously a low bar. So why would I personally be interested in bringing Goodrum back to the organization where he debuted in 2017 and went 1-for-17 (.059) in September. 
He signed with the Tigers and had two really strong seasons. In 2018, he hit .245/.315/.432 (.749) with 29 doubles and 16 homers. In 2019, he hit .248/.322/.421 (.743) with 27 doubles, five triples and 12 homers. He stole 12 bases in 2018 and 2019, and 14 bases in 2021. 
Goodrum will turn 30 early in spring training 2022. While the upside may be somewhat limited and include a lot of swing-and more,, there is also great athleticism, tools, speed and power with Goodrum.
The Twins drafted and signed Cartier “Niko” Goodrum out of high school in Georgia in 2010. Jorge Polanco had signed a year earlier. The two climbed up the organization ladder together. Goodrum played mostly shortstop while Polanco played shortstop. Could the keystone combination exist again?
In 2020, Goodrum was a finalist for an AL Gold Glove at shortstop. He is a natural shortstop with good range and a strong arm. If the Twins signed him and told him to prepare to compete for the team’s starting shortstop job, he might be a terrific choice. Hey, if the other choices right now include a return of Simmons, then I would certainly support giving Goodrum a shot. 
What would it cost? I would think a one-year, $1.5 to $2.0 million would do it, especially if he was given the opportunity to start most days at shortstop. If he’s given an opportunity to start most every day at shortstop, it’s likely he would just want a one year deal, hope it goes well, and enter free agency again after the 2022 season when it isn’t the greatest free agent shortstop class ever. 
Because of the dollars, it would be a low-risk deal. Because of his defense, speed and power potential, there is a chance for reward. If it doesn’t go well, he can finish the year as a utility player, capable of playing seven positions (yes, all better than Willians Astudillo). If Royce Lewis is deemed ready-to-go sometime in 2021, Goodrum can become a utility player.  
In addition, Goodrum might have interest in a return because he has several  former teammates from his minor league days with the. He played over his years with Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Jorge Polanco, Max Kepler, Mitch Garver, Tyler Duffey, Taylor Rogers, and Tommy Watkins was a coach and manager.
An added bonus is that Goodrum has always been great in the community, going back to his Twins days when he was a Harmon Killebrew Community Service Award recipient in 2013 with the Cedar Rapids Kernels. 
Many times the concept of “Bring Back the Gang” gets a negative connotation. Sometimes that is fair. Other times, it just makes sense. If healthy, Niko Goodrum can provide really good defense at shortstop, some power at the plate and speed. Yes, that comes with some injury risk and a lot of strikeouts. But at the price tag, it is certainly worth strong consideration. 
So what do you think? Should the Twins consider a reunion with Niko Goodrum?
 

Taylor Rogers wasn’t part of the original AL All-Star roster, but Yusei Kikuchi was placed on the inactive list due to COVID protocols and now Rogers gets to live out what must feel like a dream. He attended Rockies games growing up and now he has a chance to pitch on the Coors Field mound for the first time in his professional career. Rogers was already in Denver, so it took him just under 90 minutes to get from his Denver home to last night’s Home Run Derby.
Minnesota has won back-to-back AL Central titles and during that stretch, Rogers has been one of baseball’s best relievers. Since the start of 2018, he ranks fifth among relievers in FanGraph’s WAR. This puts him behind names like Josh Hader, Liam Hendriks, Edwin Diaz, and Ryan Pressly. His value to the Twins goes much deeper than WAR.
According to Win Probability Added, Rogers has been the AL’s best relief pitcher since 2018. While some clubs might relegate Rogers to a traditional closer role, Minnesota has used him in a variety of late-inning situations that come with some of the highest leverage. In fact, there have been multiple stretches where he has felt like the only reliable option out of the Twins’ bullpen.  
Rogers and his quiet demeanor don’t necessarily fit the prototypical personality of a late-inning reliever, but he is a team leader on and off the field. After Kyle Gibson left following the 2019 season, Rogers took over as Minnesota’s player representative to the MLB Players Association. His first year in the role saw him having to represent the team through a pandemic, which couldn’t have been an easy task.
Besides his off-field responsibilities in 2020, Rogers saw his performance suffer for the first time during the pandemic shortened season. He posted his highest career ERA, WHIP and H/9, but he did all of this in only 20 innings pitched. The peripheral numbers pointed to him being unlucky as he had a 2.84 FIP and he was getting BABIP’ed to death (.400 BABIP). He has bounced back nicely in 2021 and being selected to his first All-Star Game is just part of the reward.
His Statcast numbers are also some of baseball’s best. His chase rate ranks in the 100th percentile and he ranks in the 90th percentile or higher in xwOBA, xERA, K%, and BB%. There are few relievers that can match one of those statistical areas let alone be ranked that highly in five different Statcast categories.  
Minnesota has been lucky to have quite the run of All-Star relievers over parts of the last two decades. Joe Nathan was selected to four All-Star teams with the Twins after being traded from the Giants. Glen Perkins made three All-Star appearances from 2013-2015 as he got to close out the 2014 All-Star Game in front of the Target Field crowd. Now Rogers, a Colorado native, has the opportunity to make his own memories at Coors Field.
Congratulations to Taylor Rogers!
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