Minnesota Twins: Miguel Sano to play outfield in Dominican Winter League
The Minnesota Twins got their outfield a little un-logjammed with the retirement of Torii Hunter. They might be back to getting it all jammed up again. The Twins will be having big time slugger Miguel Sano play some outfield this offseason in the Dominican Winter League.
Molitor said Miguel Sano will play some outfield in the Dominican Winter League. Twins are looking at OF for him to keep him from being a DH
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) November 5, 2015
Molitor said he'd like to have Trevor Plouffe at third base next year but doesn't want Sano to be a permanent DH. So experimenting with OF.
— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) November 5, 2015
Minnesota finds themselves in this interesting predicament mainly for having the desire of not having a very young Sano become a full-time DH. Manager Paul Molitor has expressed his desire to not have Sano as a full-time DH while also keeping Trevor Plouffe at third base and assumedly keeping Joe Mauer playing first.
That makes things a little difficult.
The outfield will be a new experience for Sano. Sano has played third, short and first throughout his major and minor league career, but never the outfield. On the other hand, both Plouffe and Mauer have had some outfield experience.
Plouffe has played in 30 major league game in the outfield, but not since 2012. Joe Mauer appeared in the outfield for only one glorious game in right field in 2011. Mauer had three chances and converted three put-outs in the game.
While the other two have experience, Sano is faster than both Mauer and Plouffe in the outfield. Sano might be a very big guy, but he is still very agile. Nevertheless, moving Sano to the outfield would bring back the logjam since Sano needs to be in the lineup virtually every day.
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Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario, Aaron Hicks, Max Kepler and Oswaldo Arcia are all already poised to be competing for spots in the outfield in spring training and only Rosario seems a for-sure shoo-in to make it. Throw in Sano at another outfield spot and that leaves four guys for one spot. That’s, of course, assuming Sano works in the outfield which is putting the cart in front of the horse for now.
Sano needs to be in the lineup and the Twins have an overabundance of seemingly good young players. That’s a good situation to be in and it’ll be a whole lot of fun to see how it all works itself out.
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