Contemplatng Pedro Florimon

Pedro Florimon makes a diving catch of a looper
for the first out of the ninth inning Friday.

Pedro Florimon certainly had a good game Friday: Three more-or-less spectacular plays in the field, two runs scored (with a hit and a walk) on offense.

His play yielded this Trevor Plouffe line about Florimon's defense: "I never realized how bad I was at shortstop until I watched someone like him."

Florimon's season has basically lived up to his good-field, no-hit reputation (although he's committed a few too many errors). In reality, his hitting stats have been wrecked by an extreme platoon split: Against righties, the switch hitter is .274/.342./.402, which is plenty good enough for a shortstop. But against lefties, he's a dismal .123/.161/.153, which is pitcher-like.

It's not a lot of at-bats, and it's rather inexplicable for a natural right-handed hitter to be that much better from the left side. It would seem likely that Florimon is better right-handed than that — and, by the same token, quite possible that he's not really that good left-handed.

But it occurs to me that, of the nine players in the Twins batting order Friday night, Florimon is one of the few who has a chance to be in the same position on the next good Twins team. There's Mauer at catcher, maybe Florimon at short. Everybody else will probably either be gone or playing another position when the big wave of minor league talent takes hold.