Twins Center Fielders: A Gap-to-Gap Legacy

The 2012 Minnesota Twins really only had one position of depth.  That position was center field, whom they boasted of Denard Span, Ben Revere, and a pretty solid third option in Darin Mastroianni.  By the time the winter meetings were over, one of Twins' fans biggest question quickly became "Who is going to play center field?"  Overall, the position still has good depth, with Mastroianni, Aaron Hicks, Joe Benson, and young Byron Buxton still in the organization.  Out of those five guys, however, a major league-ready center fielder seems to be missing.

With the exception of a five year span between 1994-1998, the position has been held by some of the best center fielders in the game since 1984 when Kirby Puckett took over.  Torii Hunter took over in 1999, and more recently Carlos Gomez, Denard Span, and Ben Revere held down the fort until 2013.  Gold Gloves and all-star type production offensively have become the expectation out of that position, and it has really become somewhat of a legacy of center fielders within the organization.  Puckett won 6 Gold Gloves; Hunter won 7 in his time with the Twins; and Gomez, Span, and Revere certainly didn't disappoint us in the 5 years since #48.  Offensively, Puckett hit .318 in his career with the Twins,  Hunter hit .271, Span .284, and Revere .278.

Needless to say, 2013 is setting up to be somewhat of a let-down for Twins fans who are used to the CF position being one of absolute strength on this roster.  Although most of us are at least somewhat excited for the future arrival of Aaron Hicks, it doesn't seem he will be quite ready for Opening Day when the defending AL Champion Detroit Tigers visit Target Field.  Hicks struggled mightily in 2011 at High A Fort Myers, hitting .242/.354/.368.  As you can see below, the young center fielder really struggled to put the ball in play consistently, striking out 338 times in the last 3 years.  Only a 23 year old, Hicks made significant strides last season at AA New Britain, increasing his hitting, power, and baserunning numbers.  The future is bright for Aaron Hicks, but again, that future with the Twins wouldn't seem like it will start Opening Day 2013.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	Lev	Aff	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2010	20	Beloit	MIDW	A	MIN	115	423	86	118	27	6	8	49	21	11	88	112	.279	.401	.428	.829
2011	21	Fort Myers	FLOR	A+	MIN	122	443	79	107	31	5	5	38	17	9	78	110	.242	.354	.368	.722
2012	22	New Britain	EL	AA	MIN	129	472	100	135	21	11	13	61	32	11	79	116	.286	.384	.460	.844

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 1/1/2013.

Opening Day 2013 will most likely feature 27 year old Darin Mastroianni roaming the gaps of Target Field.  Before last season, Mastroianni had made only one appearance in the majors with Toronto, making 3 plate appearances.  In 77 games with the Twins last season, after starting in AA New Britain and working his way up to the bigs, he proved to be a solid fill-in to give Span and Revere a break.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
2011	25	TOR	AL	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	.000	.000	.000	.000
2012	26	MIN	AL	77	163	22	41	3	2	3	17	21	3	18	45	.252	.328	.350	.678

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Generated 1/1/2013.

Mastroianni plays solid defense, has a little pop in his bat, and is a serious threat on the base paths.    Surprisingly, although a pretty small sample size, his RngR as a CF last season was a little better than Revere's last season (1.3 in 32.1 innings, to -1.2 in 309 innings for Revere), while somewhat comparible to Span (8.7 in 1073.1 innings).  While both Revere and Span sport below average arms, according to Fangraphs, Mastroianni's career ARM is an above average 2.0 in 406.1 career MLB innings.

The elephant in the room when it comes to Darin Mastroianni is that he has never been a starter or played a full season in the big leagues.  Although he has some obvious downfalls, his ability to be a nuisance on the bases will be a breath of fresh air in 2013.  According to the statistics, although difficult to fathom, he may even be somewhat of an upgrade defensively over Revere and Span.  If nothing else, I think we could say that he will hold his own.  I think the biggest thing we will miss will be the grinding at bats and highlight reel defensive gems we loved to see out of Span and Revere, respectively.

We'll find out soon how long the Twins wait to introduce Aaron Hicks to Target Field, but I can think of worse band-aids to throw out in center field temporarily than Darin Mastroianni.  It's safe to say he'll probably never be the staple that Puckett, Hunter, and Span became; but don't think it will be as big of a drop off as you would expect after trading away the two best center fielders on the roster this winter.

Follow Twins Rubes on Twitter @twinsrubes.

The Corner Outfield

With the departures of Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, and Jason Repko; the corner outfield positions are going to have a significantly different look in 2012.  With the addition of Josh Willingham, the 3 outfield positions will most likely consist of some combination of Denard Span, Josh Willingham, Ben Revere, and Trevor Plouffe.  Last week, we determined that it might be best defensively for Revere to play in center, moving Span to one of the corners.  The question now becomes: Is Ben Revere even one of our best 3 outfielders?  Span and Willingham are without a doubt the two best outfielders on the roster, so let's break down the competition between Plouffe and Revere for that last spot.

Starting in CF for the Minnesota Twins...

Two of my favorite current Minnesota Twins are Denard Span and Ben Revere.  I've been a huge fan of Span since the day he stepped onto that Metrodome turf, and what's not to like about Revere?  With the departures of Delmon Young, Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, and Jason Repko; the addition of Josh Willingham; and the seemingly complete return to health of Denard Span this spring; there has obviously been an enormous shake-up across the entire outfield looking ahead to 2012.  Manager Ron Gardenhire has basically already named Denard Span his starting center fielder for opening day, but I like I'm sure many of you Twins fans would question that move if he indeed is in CF against the Orioles April 6th.

Is it Opening Day tomorrow?

With the exception of Scott Baker's recent trip the DL, the 2011 Minnesota Twins as of tomorrow will be at "full strength" as far as the 25 man roster is concerned - basically for the first time all year!  This morning on KFAN, P.A. had Seth Stohs on talking about how potentially potent this lineup could be with everyone back.  Currently 9.5 games behind division leading Detroit with 45 games to play, I am not quite ready to relinquish hope of a comeback just yet.  Once again, we have 9 games left with Detroit, 9 with Cleveland, and 6 with the White Sox.  On Friday our lineup will quickly turn from a lineup filled with Repko, Butera, Hughes, Plouffe, and Dinkleman; to a lineup that is truly "stacked" on paper.  Let's take a look at the possibilities!

Twins Fever at a Mid-Season High

It has been a long time since I have been able to sit down and put my thoughts together on the Twins. I have been encouraged with their play over the last 5 weeks. The Twins are 24-11 since June 1st and have made up 10 games in the standings, (although they've only made up 4.5 games on Detroit over that span). Strangely enough, this stretch included a six-game losing streak. I'm not exactly sure what happened there. Anyway, the run to the 2011 pennant is in full swing.

The following list of things has me very excited about the final 73 games of the season:

• The starting pitching has been getting deeper into games. Pavano and Baker have now raised their season average above 6.5 innings per start. Swarzak has saved the team in the spot starts he has made. Duensing and Liriano have both thrown complete game shutouts, and although Blackburn has really struggled in his last 3 starts, the Twins still managed to win 2 of them.
• The innings logged by the starters has reduced the amount that the bullpen needs to be relied upon. My feeling on the bullpen this year can be summed up with "Less Is More." Yet, I still feel pretty good about the bullpen getting through 3 innings if needed.
• The Twins have been clutch at the plate which has led to an increase in run production. Prior to June 2, the Twins averaged 3.5 runs per game, since June 2 their runs per game average has increased to 4.5. The team has to be clutch when they don't hit it out of the park.
• Casilla, Nishioka, and Revere have been making terrific plays in the field. Although the Twins are low in the fielding rankings and still have trouble at times completing double plays, they are now making plays that they didn't make earlier in the season. Revere has outstanding range, and Casilla and Nishioka seem to be figuring out how to work together now that they have switched between shortstop and second base.

The next 11 games out of the All-Star break are against Kansas City, Detroit and Cleveland. The Twins need to continue the climb again the division and really put the pressure on the division leaders as the season stretches into August and September. Chicago and Detroit have proven in the past that they have the ability to crumble down the stretch. Cleveland has been ravaged by injuries so much in the past that they haven't been in this situation since 2007. Most people thought they would have folded by now and they haven't, so I believe they will be around until the end.

6.5 games out of the lead at the All-Star break is not too much for this team to overcome. The Twins have done it in the past and can do it again. Sometimes it has taken 163 games, but the Twins will not give up until the final out has been made.

Fanatics Unite!

The term "fan" stems from the word "fanatic", which is defined by www.dictionary.com as "a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal."  It's been hard this season to be uncritical, but that positivity is finally paying off!  Our favorite club has made up something like 8.5 games in the last 19 days to pull within 8 games of the division-leading Cleveland Indians - wait, the Indians still lead the division?  If you saw any highlights from this afternoon, you know why they are still leading the division: Asdrubal Cabrera.  This guy made an unbelievable bare-handed play today that you have to see.

That's enough about the Indians, though.  How the heck did we make up so much ground so fast?  The obvious answer is that we keep winning.  The Twins are 14-3 now in June after sweeping the Padres (on Father's Day, naturally) for their seventh straight win.  My answer is: this team is good enough for this run to be relatively normal.  Starting pitching has been no less than solid 1-5, guys are running the bases and creating runs, and our backup catcher is getting walk-off hits.  I hate to beat a dead horse, but we still have Morneau, Span, Kubel, Nathan, and Thome getting ready to come off the DL, with Nishioka and Mauer just getting back into the full swing of things.  Positivity is at an all time high!

Now, I have to confess that I haven't seen much of the Twins these last 2 weeks due to some weddings/family vacations/chasing after my slow-pitch softball dreams.  Maybe I should continue to rely on my ESPN alerts via text message a little longer and see if we can sustain this run!

Let me offer just a little more positivity moving forward to assure you that this run will be sustained.  The upcoming schedule includes 3 games in San Francisco, who has lost 4 in a row - getting swept by Oakland this weekend.  After that we have 3 in Milwaukee - if you are scared of any team from Wisconsin, there's a problem that we can address later.  Then we're back home with series' against the Dodgers, Brewers again, and the Rays.  Once we get through that little run, the middle of July will be move-making time in the Central Division as we have 4 game series' against the Sox, Royals, Indians, and Detroit.  Only the White Sox series is on the road, and we all know that we own the Sox no matter where the game is played.  There is 9 straight opponents where it is realistic to think we have a very good shot to win nearly all of those series'.

The hardest part about being a Twins fan for the next month will be watching some guys get sent down that have been a big part of the run we are on.  Hopefully Billy Smith can find a way to keep Revere and Hughes up here.  Those two guys have quickly become two of my favorites this year.  No matter what the roster looks like, this is going to be an exciting summer as a "fanatic".  Whatever you do, pay close attention to the little things that happen - I have a good feeling this is going to be one of those seasons that you will want to tell your kids and grandkids about someday.