Minnesota Twins top third basemen

Third base is known as the “hot corner”, because the third baseman is relatively close to the batter and most right-handed hitters tend to hit the ball hard in this direction. Now days the third base position is expected to provide power. There are fewer third basemen in the Baseball Hall of Fame than there are Hall of Famers’ of any other position.

The Twins have had their share of good players at that position and the list below shows Twins players that have played in at least 200 games and played at least 51% of their games at third base from 1961 through 2016. Current Twins third sacker Miguel Sano will be moving up this list very quickly.

Gary Gaetti has always been one of my all-time favorite Minnesota Twins. I enjoyed watching him play third base and the man got his uniform dirty, he went all out all the time. Plus, he was a very good hitter. If I was asked for my Twins top 10 list, he would be near the top.

Gaetti played in the Metrodome from 1982 – 1990. Gary took a “liking” to the Dome the first time he played there by going 4-4 and hitting 2 home runs. Gaetti was an All-Star in 1988 and 1989 and was the 3B on the 1987 World Championship team.
Results
WAR/pos G From To AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB 1 Gary Gaetti 27.1 1361 1981 1990 4989 646 1276 252 25 201 758 74 .256 .744
2 Corey Koskie 22.1 816 1998 2004 2788 438 781 180 13 101 437 66 .280 .836
3 John Castino 15.1 666 1979 1984 2320 293 646 86 34 41 249 22 .278 .727
4 Rich Rollins 11.8 888 1961 1968 3048 395 830 117 20 71 369 15 .272 .727
5 Eric Soderholm 10.2 407 1971 1975 1345 184 345 56 7 36 161 14 .257 .725
6 Trevor Plouffe 8.1 723 2010 2016 2638 332 651 148 10 96 357 11 .247 .727
7 Mike Cubbage 6.9 555 1976 1980 1681 195 447 66 18 29 226 6 .266 .715
8 Scott Leius 4.9 476 1990 1995 1373 201 346 58 10 26 155 15 .252 .693
9 Mike Pagliarulo 4.0 246 1991 1993 723 79 197 40 4 9 68 8 .272 .693
10 Danny Valencia 0.8 273 2010 2012 989 106 257 52 4 24 129 4 .260 .695
11 Brent Gates 0.8 217 1998 1999 639 71 161 28 2 6 80 4 .252 .656
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/25/2017.

 

German born Navy vet 65-68 and served aboard the Shangri La CVA-38. I run https://Twinstrivia.com, best MN Twins historical web site there is. Stop by daily and check out OTD in Twins history and much more. Live in Minnesota and Florida depending on what time of the year it is.