Third Base

no, not that. or that. this.

much (virtual) ink has been spilled so far this offseason about who should occupy the hot corner for the twins next season. free agent? trade? put existing players there? lots of options, none of them no-brainers. the twins haven\’t had a steady presence at third since 2004, corey koskie\’s last season with the team. after that, we\’ve tried many combinations of good-glove-no-bat (punto, rodriguez), good-bat-no-glove (cuddyer, buscher), and no-bat-no-glove (batista, tiffee, harris, lamb). will 2009 finally be the year that the twins have a steadying presence at third that can both field and hit for power? let\’s look at some options that have been thrown out, in order of least to most sensical. (and, yes, i know \”sensical\” isn\’t a word.)

garrett atkins.

atkins has the biggest name of all of the options being floated right now, but really shouldn\’t. his reputation of being a power hitter comes from playing in baseball\’s friendliest park for hitters. if you check his home / away splits, you\’ll see that while he OPSed .921 at coors, he was a mere .752 in other ballparks. (for reference, the league average OPS in 2008 was .749.) defensively, he\’s mostly average. using hardballtimes.com\’s Revized Zone Rating, atkins\’s .699 falls alms

kevin kouzmanoff

adrian beltre

joe crede

casey blake

brian buscher / brendan harris