The really young shortstops

On Friday I examined Eduardo Escobar's grasp on the shortstop job and, in passing, mentioned the shortstops in the lower levels of the minors.

These guys aren't threats to Escobar -- yet. But they do make it a lot easier to imagine the Twins doing something with the shortstops above them in the system in the coming offseason.

With the minor league seasons winding down, here's who's where:

Danny Santana is hitting .289 for Triple A Rochester. I don't know how likely he is to come up when the rosters expand.

Jorge Polanco was moved back to Double A so he and Santana could both play short on a regular basis. He continues to have difficulty in the field, and Doug Mientkiewicz had him playing second base Friday night. I think second base is his best position, and that probably makes him trade bait during the offseason, since Brian Dozier has a lock on that position, Polanco's bat will play in the middle infield; I don't think his arm will play at short.

Those are the guys who might challenge for the big league job next spring. Now for the up-and-comers ...

Engelb Vielma is the shortstop at high A Fort Myers. His slash line there is unimpressive: .267/.315/.306, slightly worse than at Low A Cedar Rapids in 2014. In truth, Fort Myers is a much more difficult hitting environment, so essentially maintaining his production is a good sign for him.

Vielma is a 21-year-old out of Venezuela and something of a mirror image of Polanco. Observers rave about his fielding, and his bat is questionable. He definitely needs to get stronger if he's to be a major league regular, but that's pretty common among A ball prospects. There are few big league bodies at that level. Expect Vielma to move up to Double A next year.

I devoted a Monday print column earlier this month to Nick Gordon , the shortstop at low A Cedar Rapids. The Twins invested the fifth overall pick in Gordon in 2014, and I liked what I saw from him in a four-game glomming of the Kernels. He's the only one of these lower level shortstop I've actually seen play (Vielma was injured when I saw CR last summer), but it's my guess that he's the most likely of the bunch to wind up a big league regular.

Jermaine Palacios is the shortstop at Elizabethton. The latest issue of Baseball America has a short piece on him (written by the Star Tribune's Phil Miller). A 19-year-old Venezulean, Palacios is said to be a hitter, and his minor league numbers to date back that up, although one should be cautious about rookie ball stats.

Then there's Wander Javier, a 16-year-old Dominican the Twins signed this summer. They invested $4 million in him, so they clearly expect big things from him, but those big things are far down the road. Javier has yet to play in organized ball.

I've commented many a time on the sorry record the Twins have at developing their own shortstops. This crop has the potential to reverse that record. But it won't come immediately.

Shortstops past, present and future

At most positions, the first question about a prospect is: Can he hit? At shortstop (and catcher, and to a limited extent center field) the question is: Can he handle the position?

Tsuyoshi Nishioka
dodges a San Diego
baserunner.

Shortstop in particular is seen as the athlete's position. The best athlete on a high school team is probably going to be the shortstop. He needs the quickness to get to balls, the hands to field the grounders cleanly, the arm to make the infield's longest throws, the grace and body control to put it all together. And, to top it off, he needs the intelligence/instincts to know what the play is.

It's a high set of standards, and it's worth remembering that Greg Gagne — probably the best defensive shortstop the Twins have ever had and certainly the most reliable — was not certain to stick at the position as he made his way through the Twins system, that there were those in the organization who thought he should be a third baseman.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka has played four games at short for the Twins. To the naked eye, he has displayed impressive range and a suspect arm. He's been charged with two errors — one on a bobbled grounder, the other on an off-target throw — which gives him an ugly fielding percentage. To the (very limited) extent that the defensive metrics have anything to tell us, he's an average shortstop (0 in plus-minus, 0 in runs saved), which still puts him ahead of the other three men who've played shortstop for the Twins this season. Realistically, the stats from four games tell us nothing. Subjectively, he appears capable of handling the position.

Levi Michael was the 30th
overall pick earlier this month.

Also over the past few days, we've had an opportunity to observe Levi Michael, the Twins first round draft pick, playing short for North Carolina in the College World Series. The Twins say they expect Michael to stick at short; I suspect that's a minority opinion.

I haven't drawn any conclusion from what I've seen about Michael's shortstop future. I did see him come in for a grounder and make the play to first — a truly routine play, except that I have three times this year (once in spring training, twice in regular season) seem Trevor Plouffe play such balls into infield singles.

Michael knows how to come in grounders? Hey, right there he's ahead of Plouffe.

Greg Gagne and Trevor Plouffe

The optimistic projection for Trevor Plouffe had him developing into a Greg Gagne-type shortstop.

Greg Gagne's 1987 card.
He would go on to drive
in the winning run in Game
7 of the World Series that year.

There are points of similarity. Both were/are angular shortstops, so slender as to appear taller in their pinstriped uniforms than they really are. (Gagne was listed as 5-11, 185 pounds; Plouffe at 6-2, 200.) As batters, both were/are low-average hitters who draw relatively few walks but with enough power to hit 10 or so home runs a year. Both sport(ed) powerful throwing arms (when Plouffe was in high school, some scouts liked him more as a pitcher than as a shortstop).

There the similarities end. Plouffe, in his brief opportunity to be the Twins regular shortstop, proved to be an erratic thrower and uncertain fielder. Neither was a surprise to those who saw him during spring training. Gagne, on the other hand, was blessed with both an accurate arm and almost perfect judgment.

Bill James on Gagne:

He had wonderful positioning at shortstop, sure hands, excellent arm with a slingshot motion and the best judgment I ever saw in a shortstop. If he thought he could make a play at second, he'd make the play at second, and he just never seemed to misjudge those kind of things. He was aggressive without making mistakes.

I said Gagne was "blessed" with those skills, but that is probably the wrong verb,. It describes the polished talent. Gagne doubtless had to work with great diligence to develop those skills -- to master the body control that allowed him to field grounders cleanly and rapidly release a powerful, accurate throw, to hone the awareness that led to executing the right play without hesitation. It was not a given that Gagne would be a major-league shortstop; as late as 1984, he had more playing time at third base with the Twins Triple-A team than at short.

The next year, at age 23, he split playing time in the majors at short with Ron Washington and Roy Smalley; he took over the regular job in '86, and held it through 1992, through two World Series runs. Gagne played 369 minor league games at shortstop to prepare for his 14-season major league career.

Plouffe, age 24, already has almost 300 more minor league games at short than Gagne did, and with his demotion Thursday is destined for more. 

Plouffe perhaps remains young enough to develop, but if 667 games at short aren't enough to mold him into a usable major league shortstop, I don't know how many it will take.