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Minnesota Twins Top 10 Shortstops

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 .

Results
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

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/18/2018.

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 Top 10 Catchers

Twins Top 10 First Baseman

Twins Top 10 Second Basemen

Twins Top 10 Third Baseman

Twins Top 10 Shortstops

Twins Top 10 Center Fielders

Twins Top 10 Left Fielders

Twins To 10 Right Fielders

Top Twins DH

Looking at the Minnesota Twins top 10 center fielders

The Minnesota Twins have had a strong history of good center field play and when you look at this list you can certainly see why. The rankings are in Baseball-Reference WAR order and the player needed to have played center field in at least 50% of his games.

How many of these guys did you get to see play? An old fossil like me gets to say he saw them all play and one of my favorites although he did not play here very long was Lenny Green. I am not saying that Green was in Puckett’s or Hunter’s class as a center fielder but I enjoyed watching him play.

Minnesota Twins top 10 center fielders

Todays Twins center fielder is still tying to prove he belongs on this list and he just might but he is going to have to show us his stuff. Can he prove to be even better than hall of famer Kirby Puckett? That is a tall order, we will just have to wait and see and it should be fun. I am expecting a HUGE breakout season from Buxton in 2017.

Some of the guys that didn’t make the top 10 list above are Carlos Gomez, Aaron Hicks, Buxton, Alex Cole, and Ken Landreaux.

Twins Top 10 Catchers

Twins Top 10 First Baseman

Twins Top 10 Second Basemen

Twins Top 10 Third Baseman

Twins Top 10 Shortstops

Twins Top 10 Right Fielders

Twins Top 10 Center Fielders

Twins Top 10 Left Fielders

Top Twins DH

Minnesota Twins Top 10 Second Basemen

Here are the Minnesota Twins top 10 second basemen based of the WAR numbers from Baseball-Reference. To qualify a player must have played at least 51% of his games at second base. The results to I’m sure no ones surprise, is that Rod Carew comes out on top. The Twins current second baseman Brian Dozier comes in third.

Rk	Player	WAR/pos	From	To	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OPS
1	Rod Carew	63.7	1967	1978	1635	6235	950	2085	74	733	271	.334	.841
2	Chuck Knoblauch	37.9	1991	1997	1013	3939	713	1197	43	391	276	.304	.807
3	Brian Dozier	18.4	2012	2016	699	2715	422	668	117	346	74	.246	.762
4	Tim Teufel	5.5	1983	1985	316	1080	145	286	27	117	5	.265	.751
5	Rob Wilfong	5.3	1977	1982	554	1591	210	417	22	152	41	.262	.681
6	Steve Lombardozzi	4.0	1985	1988	423	1226	148	286	19	104	13	.233	.652
7	Bob Randall	3.8	1976	1980	460	1325	154	341	1	91	11	.257	.621
8	Luis Castillo	3.7	2006	2007	227	933	138	279	3	67	34	.299	.720
9	Alexi Casilla	3.5	2006	2012	515	1580	210	395	11	147	71	.250	.639
10	Bernie Allen	3.2	1962	1966	492	1595	195	392	32	163	3	.246	.682

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/2/2017.

If you looked at the entire American League during this same time period (1961-current) the top three second basemen are Lou Whitaker at 74.9, Bobby Grich at 70.9, and at 62.4 the still active Robinson Cano. Carew did not make this list because he didn’t play second base most of his career. Yet, neither Whitaker nor Grich are in the Hall of Fame. Hmmm!

Twins Top 10 Catchers

Twins Top 10 First Baseman

Twins Top 10 Second Basemen

Twins Top 10 Third Baseman

Twins Top 10 Shortstops

Twins Top 10 Right Fielders

Twins Top 10 Center Fielders

Twins Top 10 Left Fielders

Top Twins DH

Minnesota Twins Top 10 Catchers

In their 56 seasons of baseball in Minnesota the Twins have had 71 different players don the tools of ignorance and squat down behind the plate to catch a major league pitcher. Two those 71 players only caught in one inning of one game. Cesar Tovar did it when owner Calvin Griffith had him play every position in a game in 1968 as a gimmick and manager Tom Kelly had Jeff Reboulet catch the ninth inning in a 1995 game against the Royals in the Metrodome. It wasn’t an easy inning for Reboulet either, as he caught two different pitchers as the Royals sent 12 men to the plate and scored 6 runs on 6 hits not to mention 2 walks and a wild pitch.

With the Minnesota 2017 TwinsFest going on I thought it would be a good time to rank the Twins catchers. The Twins have been looking for an everyday catcher ever since Joe Mauer hung up his catcher’s mitt after the 1993 season due to a variety of injuries the most serious of which were his concussion problems. Kurt Suzuki filled in since then but he too has moved on. The Twins Top 10 Catchers list ranks the catchers by B-R WAR statistics. Player must have appeared in at least 51% of his games as a catcher to qualify for this list.

Rk	Player	WAR/pos	G	From	To	Age	AB	H	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OPS
1	Joe Mauer	50.0	1590	2004	2016	21-33	5919	1826	130	804	50	.308	.837
2	Butch Wynegar	15.2	794	1976	1982	20-26	2746	697	37	325	8	.254	.682
3	Earl Battey	14.3	853	1961	1967	26-32	2762	768	76	350	8	.278	.765
4	Brian Harper	13.4	730	1988	1993	28-33	2503	767	48	346	7	.306	.773
5	A.J. Pierzynski	9.4	430	1998	2003	21-26	1428	430	26	193	6	.301	.788
6	George Mitterwald	6.0	514	1966	1973	21-28	1578	377	50	176	9	.239	.676
7	Glenn Borgmann	5.0	442	1972	1979	22-29	1207	277	14	137	4	.229	.630
8	Tim Laudner	3.2	734	1981	1989	23-31	2038	458	77	263	3	.225	.682
9	Terry Steinbach	3.1	347	1997	1999	35-37	1207	309	30	150	8	.256	.719
10	Kurt Suzuki	3.0	368	2014	2016	30-32	1230	323	16	160	0	.263	.680