Many wise baseball people have said a good team is strong up the middle of the field defensively and with the bat. Strong teams have a good catcher, shortstop, second baseman, and center fielder. Look at any of the playoff contending teams this year. They have a strong middle defensively and offensively. In truth, the Twins have struggled to field a strong middle of the field in any one game this season.
Starting with catcher the Twins easily have the best in Joe Mauer. With the bat and the glove he has no peers maybe in the history of the game. Unfortunately that is where the strengths end. For the sake of argument I will include the Twins third basemen in these statistics since it has been more or less underperformed by those that have played there this year. For the season all players that have played 3B, SS, and 2B for the Twins have hit a puny .229 and more devastating to the team their On Base Percentage is a dismal .297. The Twins are the worst in the majors at 2B production. Second basemen have hit an unbelievablely low .200 for the Twins. They are 24th in SS production and 24th at the 3B position as well.
Centerfielders for the Twins this year have hit a combined .270 with an OBP of .344. If Carlos Gomez (.237/.293/.348) performed at even an average level at the plate the centerfield numbers would be more than respectable. Regardless, the centerfield numbers place the Twins in the middle of all Major League teams in terms of batting production with a large contribution coming from Denard Span's at bats.
How active the Twins will be in the free agent market this off season remains to be seen. Looking at the numbers the middle of the field have produced this year it is imperative they look to the outside for solutions to at least two positions. All reports indicate Danny Valencia will be the starting 3B next season. That leaves 2B, SS and CF. Carlos Gomez is going nowhere, although I wonder what his value is to other teams via a trade. With Delmon Young departing, the outfield should have Span in LF, Gomez in CF, and Cuddyer in RF. That leaves the Twins needing to fill SS and 2B with free agents. There will be good free agents available at both those positions and especially at 2B. What the Twins can't do is settle and hope someone on the team will come up with a big season playing SS and 2B. We've seen what Nick Punto, Brendan Harris and Alexi Casilla can do over the long haul. Fans deserve to see a new middle of the infield at Target Field. Doing nothing to fix an obvious problem cannot be an option.
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