I did some of these top 10 rating for catchers, second basemen, and center fielders last off-season so we will continue the series. Here are the Minnesota Twins top 10 shortstops based on the WAR numbers from Baseball-Reference. To qualify a player must have played at least 51% of his games at shortstop. The list kind of shows how weak the Twins shortstops have been over the years. The best season by a Twins shortstop goes back to 1965 when Zoilo Versalles had his American League MVP season, that year he had a WAR of 7.2 .
| Rk | Player | WAR/pos | From | To | G | AB | H | HR | RBI | BB | SB | BA | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roy Smalley | 20.8 | 1976 | 1987 | 1148 | 3997 | 1046 | 110 | 485 | 549 | 15 | .262 | .750 |
| 2 | Greg Gagne | 17.9 | 1983 | 1992 | 1140 | 3386 | 844 | 69 | 335 | 188 | 79 | .249 | .677 |
| 3 | Zoilo Versalles | 15.2 | 1961 | 1967 | 1065 | 4148 | 1046 | 86 | 401 | 251 | 84 | .252 | .686 |
| 4 | Leo Cardenas | 11.1 | 1969 | 1971 | 473 | 1720 | 453 | 39 | 210 | 159 | 10 | .263 | .719 |
| 5 | Jason Bartlett | 8.9 | 2004 | 2014 | 324 | 1082 | 293 | 10 | 92 | 94 | 39 | .271 | .702 |
| 6 | Cristian Guzman | 7.5 | 1999 | 2004 | 841 | 3277 | 871 | 39 | 289 | 166 | 102 | .266 | .685 |
| 7 | Pat Meares | 6.0 | 1993 | 1998 | 742 | 2464 | 653 | 41 | 303 | 95 | 42 | .265 | .682 |
| 8 | Eduardo Escobar | 4.2 | 2012 | 2017 | 574 | 1860 | 474 | 48 | 221 | 119 | 10 | .255 | .704 |
| 9 | Jorge Polanco | 3.1 | 2014 | 2017 | 211 | 749 | 199 | 17 | 105 | 62 | 18 | .266 | .739 |
| 10 | Pedro Florimon | 2.7 | 2012 | 2014 | 210 | 616 | 126 | 10 | 55 | 51 | 24 | .205 | .567 |
It seems like the Minnesota Twins love drafting shortstops in the June free agent draft, since the draft started in 1965 they have drafted 13 shortstops in the first round, none of those draftees are on this top 10 list. That is not to say they never played for Minnesota, they just never played 51% or more of their games at short, I am talking about players like Trevor Plouffe, Michael Cuddyer, and Chuck Knoblauch.
There are no players on the above list drafted by Minnesota, Zoilo Versalles and Jorge Polanco were signed by Minnesota as amateur free agents. You can add shortstops as another position that the Twins don’t seem to draft well.
Twins To 10 Right Fielders