Santana ranked 26th on Zach Sanders’ rankings, behind Drew Stubbs and ahead of Lorenzo Cain.

The Twins have been painfully short on innovation the last four years — not incidentally all 90-loss seasons — but one of the most creative things the club has done was moving infielder Danny Santana from the infield to center field.

The beginning to Aaron Hicks’ career has not been pretty, and with the Twins’ pre-Fuld outfield loaded with trudgers like Josh Willingham, Chris Parmelee and Oswaldo Arcia, it was clear the club needed another option in center. In fact, even with Sam Fuld around both he and Hicks suffered concussions right around the same time — necessitating another option out there.

Santana came up in early May and stayed up for good. He played shortstop for about the first week and then was pretty much a full-time center fielder with the exception of a couple spurts at short — one a little ways down the road and then to end the season.

And that might be where Santana, whose minor league track record clearly doesn’t match what he did this year, will end up. The early indications from new Twins manager Paul Molitor is that Santana will likely be the club’s regular shortstop, which not only creates a second hold in a ghastly Twins outfield — left field being the other — but displaces the erstwhile Eduardo Escobar, who in fact had a rather nice season at that spot (.275/.315/.406). Read the rest of this entry »

Plouffe ranked 10th in Zach Sanders’ third base rankings.

A pleasant development in another otherwise-dreary Minnesota Twins season was the rounding into form of Trevor Plouffe. In fact, Plouffe’s +3.5 WAR this year isn’t only easily his finest season, it actually pushes him to just +3.1 for a career mark.

Or in other words, he was below zero prior to this season.

The funny thing is, without digging a bit deeper, Plouffe’s 2014 doesn’t look wildly different from what he has done before. Read the rest of this entry »

Kipnis ranked 14th among second basemen in Colonel Sanders’ rankings, ahead of Omar Infante and behind Kolten Wong.

Jason Kipnis came into the season as Rotographs’ No. 1 fantasy second baseman, and in that regard the season was a pretty big disappointment. Well, in virtually every regard Kipnis was a disappointment.

Kipnis hit just .240/.310/.330; among qualified second sackers those marks ranked 16th, 12th and 16th. As a side note: there were only 16 qualified second basemen. Only D.J. LeMahieu and Dee Gordon hit fewer home runs than Kipnis’ six. Arguably Kipnis’ only saving grace was his 22 steals. Only Gordon and Jose Altuve swiped more.

An interesting bit of news shot through the wires in the last week as the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Terry Pluto reported Kipnis had bulked up to build his strength and hopefully hit more power. Read the rest of this entry »

Mauer ranked 24th among fantasy first basemen this year according to Colonel Sanders’ rankings behind Mark Teixeira and ahead of Mike Napoli.

On the surface, Joe Mauer’s 2014 season is anything but impressive. In fact, it’s borderline identical to his last injury-marred season back in 2011.

The circumstances were a little different though. In 2011 Mauer was shut down with pneumonia and upper respiratory issues. This year Mauer played out the string, but did miss 34 games in the middle of the season for an oblique issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Suzuki was the 14th ranked catcher, behind Seattle’s Mike Zunino and ahead of San Diego’s Yasmani Grandal.

When the news broke last November that Joe Mauer would be moving off the catcher position permanently, a void opened that many assumed would be filled by Josmil Pinto. Not much was known about Pinto’s receiving skills, but the 24-year-old had just wrapped up a 21-game September run where he hit .342/.398/.566 and in doing so created considerable buzz.

It’s been nearly a year since then and Pinto still hasn’t grabbed that starting spot. And some would say it’s for good reason. No, it probably doesn’t make sense that Pinto’s age-25 season was spent by and large at Triple-A Rochester — especially in light of the Twins losing 90 games for the fourth consecutive season. But the Twins had their reasons, like it or not.

Their reasoning was the play of Kurt Suzuki. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not a terribly smart person. Read the rest of this entry »

First a look at the running totals through half of week 23:

46-34 record
3.77 ERA
7.6 K/9
2.8 K/BB
1.29 WHIP

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses:

Danny Duffy – 28.6% ESPN/39% Y!/66% own, 28% start CBS – @CLE (.314), @CWS (.314)

There’s some risk associated with starting Duffy here, as he’s coming off having his last start skipped and has been out since coming out of a start against the Yankees Sept. 6. But there can be virtually no qualms about Duffy’s skill set and that’s about all we can go on here. Duffman has a 2.44 ERA and .591 OPS allowed since moving into the rotation in early May, and his month-by-month ERA over that span goes like this:

4.00
1.69
2.01
2.41

Get this guy in your lineups. Read the rest of this entry »

First a look at the running totals through half of week 22:

45-32 record
3.75 ERA
7.5 K/9
2.7 K/BB
1.30 WHIP

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses:

Brad Peacock – 0.1% ESPN/1% Y!/7% own, 3% start CBS – v. CLE (.316), v. SEA (.300)

As his ownership numbers will attest, Peacock hasn’t been particularly good this season. And that probably all ties into 4.7 BB/9 along with a fly ball-heavy profile at that home stadium. But Peacock is on a nice little mini-run (1.66 ERA, .187/.287/.293 opponents’ line, 8.7 K/9) over his last four starts. Worth watching will be how Peacock fares against both these teams — well, obviously, but stick with me here — since he faced both of those teams on that four-game stretch (both no decisions). The biggest issue for this righty has been blow-ups, as he’s got three starts where he’s allowed five, seven, and eight earned runs. In 19 of his 26 appearances (some in relief) he’s allowed three or fewer runs. The potential seems to be here for a McHugh-like breakthrough. Read the rest of this entry »

First a look at the running totals through half of week 21:

43-30 record
3.84 ERA
7.5 K/9
2.6 K/BB
1.32 WHIP

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses:

Danny Salazar – 30.0% ESPN/49% Y!/55% own, 28% start CBS – v. LAA (.319), @DET (.331)

Salazar’s late-season resurgence will be put to the test, as he faces two top-six offenses this week, both of which have a strong likelihood of making the playoffs. Salazar returned in late July, and has made eight starts since: 5-2, 2.30 ERA, 45-11 K/BB rate (47 innings), and an opponents’ slash of .232/.283/.311. He also made eight starts before being sent out: 1-4, 5.53 ERA, .886 OPS allowed, 10.4 K/9, 3.8 BB/9. Eno Sarris says that Salazar is using his slider more in lieu of a splitter/changeup, and it appears as though his command is better for it. That’ll be worth monitoring down the stretch, because the splitter/change was a solid swing-and-miss offering when it was right. He may slowly bring it back down the stretch. Read the rest of this entry »

First a look at the running totals through half of week 20:

41-29 record
3.91 ERA
7.5 K/9
2.6 K/BB
1.33 WHIP

And since some of you have asked some questions, click here for a link to the spreadsheet I keep with all the numbers.

Also a brief side note: I (redacted) up and typed out a comment and failed to hit ‘post’ when made aware that Jimmy Nelson wouldn’t get two starts last week. I was going to advise owners to go with Jarred Cosart, and I have failed you. Sorry.

Here’s a look at this week’s recs, with team wOBA in parentheses:

Kevin Gausman – 6.2% ESPN/14% Y!/61% own, 34% start CBS – v. MIN (.315), @TBR (.309)

Gausman has basically reached the point where one can see the stuff is there, it’s just time for the results to start matching. At times he’s gotten strikeouts, and at times he’s gotten grounders. He’s struggled with home runs, but since rectified that. The walks are up, the walks are down, and the walks are back up again. But this is a 23-year-old kid with a big fastball, a nasty splitter, and a shot to the the Orioles ace for the foreseeable future. It’s disappointing to see how he’s been handled this year, but consider where the Orioles are and where Gausman is statistically this year. OK, maybe that isn’t fair, but at some point you need them worse than they need you. The Orioles have certainly used Gausman to have the biggest divisional lead in baseball to this point, but it’s been a total team effort that the club arguably could have done with or without him. The Twins offense has been red-hot in August, but was also just shut down by Liam Hendriks. It’s a mixed bag with that bunch. The Rays are exactly in the middle of the road, but have been dismal (.286 wOBA) in August. Read the rest of this entry »