Tuesday,
October 13, 2009
What Would You
Do?
Young/Gomez
Edition
With the 2009
season in the rearview mirror, it is likely that the Twins front office will soon
turn their attention to the 2010 season. There are a ton of decisions that GM Bill Smith and his staff need to make
this offseason. In conjunction with TwinsCentric.com
and its Offseason GM Handbook, we are look at a series of What Would
YOU Do blog entries. We have considered what to do with Orlando Cabrera, Joe Nathan, and Carl Pavano.
I am completely
exhausted, so today I’m going to post a quick article on a couple of players
that I know everyone has an opinion on, Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez. It’s interesting to me
that you very rarely find someone who doesn’t have an opinion on this topic.
The general idea we can assume is the Michael
Cuddyer will be in RF next year for the Twins and
that Denard Span will be the team’s every day leadoff
hitter. But will Span play CF every day or LF? That is a question that will likely
be answered this offseason. So, what do you think:
Offense – They both
swing at everything, so no real advantage there. That said, Young seems to have
much more power, and given more playing time late in the season, he showed some
of that with three home runs on the final weekend. Gomez seemed to try to take
more pitches, but I’m not certain that was successful either. Gomez also quit
bunting for hits, which was one of his best weapons his first month as a Twin.
Base Running – Carlos Gomez is clearly much faster.
However, he is not a good base runner at all. He has been afraid to steal bases
since about May of 2008. He can fly around the bases, but he makes a lot of
mistakes. Although not a speedy runner, Young seems to be a smart base runner,
and can occasionally steal a base.
Defense – Carlos Gomez is statistically one of
the better CF in baseball, but I don’t think he’s a great outfielder yet. He
still takes some bad angles to baseballs, he’s just so
fast he’s able to make up for it. He’s got a strong arm, but uses it
inconsistently. Young is clearly not a real strong LF. He looks shaky and
uncertain, but he makes very few errors, so most of the time, he gets the job
done.
The Twins used Jason Kubel a
lot in the outfield late in the season, and Carlos Gomez was the 4th outfielder. At this point, I’m
not convinced that he is really more than that. That said,
it’s hard to know that until he gets every day playing time for a year. But the
same can be said for Delmon Young. Therein lies
the problem. They both need the daily playing time, but there isn’t a way to do
that. So, there must be a trade. Does either of them have value at this point?
Which would be a better #4 option if they don’t trade either?
So what do you
think? First, who has the bigger upside? Who do you think could contribute more
to the Twins if playing time for each was every day? What would you do with
playing time, or what would you expect to get back if
either is traded? If you would like to share your thoughts, please
click here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is another
of many, many decisions that the Twins General Manager Bill Smith will have to make now that the Twins playoff run is
complete. John Bonnes (Twins
Geek), Parker Hageman (Over
the Baggy), Nick Nelson (Nick’s
Twins blog) and myself have put together the TwinsCentric Offseason GM Handbook. In its
pages, we will put the reader in the role of Twins GM. The four of us will act
as advisers. We will provide you with 137 pages worth of information to help
you work through your offseason. We discuss the Twins internal free agents,
look at the 40 man roster and options to be added, possible trade targets and
free agent options. We will review the Joe
Mauer contract situation, the #2 spot in the
order, and all of the Twins potential arbitration scenarios. Finally, we will
each present you with a blueprint, our own recommendation of eight to ten ideas
to improve the Twins in 2010. Darren “Doogie” Wolfson wrote the
foreword for us. If you are at all interested in this, be sure to go to www.TwinsCentric.com
where you can purchase an electronic book (all 137 pages) for just $9.95. If
you’re even just a little bit intrigued, still check out that web site where
you can also receive a Free Sample of approximately 1/3 the book. Of
course, if you have any questions or comments, you can e-mail me, or e-mail
TwinsCentric@gmail.com.