Gomez and Casilla

Casilla is intriguing and Seth has some interesting comments on his site. The biggest thing I see about Casilla that makes me feel he could still develop is that he is only 23 years old and he’s drawn a lot of walks at AAA so at the very least he has good plate discipline. If he can start to hit for a little more average while drawing the walks he could be a great leadoff guy. Maybe it’s too early for 2009 lineup guesses but this is what I’d like to see happen.

1 SS Casilla
2 CF Gomez
3 C Mauer
4 1B Morneau
5 LF Young
6 DH Kubel
7 RF Cuddyer
8 2B Harris
9 3B Lamb/Tolbert/Buscher/Macri

This is purely based on whether guys develop over the year. If Casilla doesn’t show us more there’s no way he’s batting leadoff and would most likely slide down into the 9 spot. Gomez seems to have a bit of power to go with that speed so I think batting him 2nd wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. If he grounds out he could most likely prevent the DP with his speed. I’ve even thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have him bat 2nd this year with Mauer batting leadoff for that very reason. He can lay down a bunt with the fielders at DP depth and have a better shot at making it an infield hit. I forgot to put in a random old outfielder to go at DH with Kubel though, I’m not sure who’s available next year.

Back to Casilla I have hope but to say I’m optimistic about him would be a little bit of an overstatement. He is young and I have hope he can start getting some hits in the bigs as well as getting a walk rate at MLB similar to the one he’s got at AAA.

That’s certainly what we all want to see. I’m just don’t know if he’ll hit over .270. I do hope that he can become a good SS, but I think it will be a SS who makes a lot of great plays, and misses a lot of easy ones. I also hope that the move either Gomez or Casilla to the nine spot, shifting everyone else up one, but that is the lineup to hope for. Really, with Tolbert in, its not a bad defensive lineup either.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting to watch some of Casilla’s games. I enjoyed it last year, because he makes some exciting plays. Hopefully I’ll find that he looks like he could become an above average player also, but we’ll see.

...I also am puzzled why Plouffe has taken another step up this year. When they brought Casilla up, I certainly thought that they would promote someone from New Britain as Rochester was down to only 3 players for second, short and third. Had Hughes been healthy, maybe they would have promoted him (he did play last night as DH). I also was thinking that with Plouffe not playing in back to back games last weekend that he had in fact been promoted (nothing reported anywhere, but maybe he also is battling some type of injury which is why he sat out a couple games). Instead, the Twins went out and signed a player for Rochester who appears to be a third baseman, not a middle infielder. Sergio Santos was a first round pick in 2002 and isn’t too old to still be considered a prospect, but why not promote someone from New Britian?