Much has been made, I guess, about the Twins third base situation. It was a hole that management tried to patch with Tony Batista who did exactly what everyone expected. He ruled third base with an iron glove. His average fluttered with .230, and his batting stance made Terry Tiffee regress to his JV team days. Then the Twins cut Batista with no real plan in mind, except to wait for the future. Nick Punto was plugged in as a stop gap because he had soft hands and the fans loved him.
Then a funny thing happened. He stuck.
Ron Gardenhire stuck Punto in the top of the order where he hit .290. Although Punto will never be regarded as a power threat, Punto proved that with regularity, he was still a threat to get on base and generally be a spark plug. The knock on Punto has always been that he strikes out too much and that he makes boneheaded plays on the basepaths. These are serious issues that can be rectified to a degree.
First, get Punto to bunt more against pitchers he doesn’t pick up well. He’s fast enough that he can make things happen. Second, if we can instruct him to stop sliding into first, I think we’ll really be on to something. It would also eliminate the third problem Punto has. He gets hurt far, far too often.
People may believe that the third base spot should be pigeonholed as a power hitters position, but I don’t understand that. In fact, traditionally third base has been a weak position in the batting order. This season, Garrett Atkins, Adrian Beltre, Miguel Cabrera, Joe Crede, Troy Glaus, Aramis Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, and David Wright were the only third basemen with over 25 home runs this season, and of those guys, only Crede, Glaus, Rodriguez (who isn’t really a third baseman anyways) and Ramirez have more than 30, and of the original group, Atkins, Cabrera, Ramirez, and Wright have batting averages better than Puntos, and of that select group, the only two available are Ramirez and Rodriguez. So really, what do the Twins gain by going after a third baseman? Not a whole lot. And any purported benefit of a big hitting third baseman, if we are to take the averages, is made up for by the Twins in two other positions. They have Joe Mauer who will hit for average in front of the big hitters, and Torii Hunter hit 30 home runs this year, a number unusual coming from center field.
While I agree that the situation at the hot corner could be better, mostly because of Punto’s injury history, but at the same time, it’s the best option the Twins will have available this off season. – Ryan
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