The Twins have signed SS Adam Everett, who became expendable from the Houston Astros one day after they landed Miguel Tejada in a six-player trade.
Here's the lowdown on Everett. Defensively he is very, very good. And, unlike guys like Nick Punto and Juan Castro, his terrific defensive reputation is real - based on actual metrics such as zone rating and range factor - not just a made-up reputation built off a couple of highlight plays that showed up on Sportscenter. Jason Bartlett was a very good shortstop, Everett is better. In fact, many regard him as the absolute, No. 1 best defensive shortstop in baseball. That will be beneficial to a young pitching staff.
That's the good news. Here's the bad. He can't hit.
For his career, he's hit .248/.299/.357 in 2,145 at-bats. That's near identical to Punto's .245/.314/.321 career line. Everett has a little more power - he hit 11 homers in 2005 - but he won't draw near as many walks as Punto can.
'05 was Everett's best year, as he hit .248/.290/.364 with 11 homers, 54 RBI, 28 doubles and 21 steals. But in the last two years he's posted Punto-ish OPS+'s of 64 and 56.
In an injury-plagued '07 he hit .232/.281/.318. You thought Punto's '07 season was historically bad (it was) - he had a 52 OPS+, just 4 points lower than Everett's.
The gain in defense from replacing Bartlett with Everett is not enough to negate the loss in offense in my opinion. Factor in that Everett is two years older than Bartlett, and it's clear that Bartlett is the better total package, a factor that deals another blow to the earlier trade with Tampa that sent Bartlett to the Rays.
I do get the feeling that this could be another sign the Twins are strongly considering moving Michael Cuddyer back to 3B. While you can get away with having a good-field, no-hit shortstop such as Punto or Everett in the lineup, you can't do it with another banjo-hitter at 3rd, and there aren't a lot of options out there for a starting 3B. If the Twins do move Cuddy back to the hot corner, the Twins lineup probably looks like this.
CF Ellsbury/Crisp/Melky
2B Brendan Harris
C Joe Mauer
3B Michael Cuddyer
1B Justin Morneau
RF Delmon Young
LF Jason Kubel
DH Craig Monroe
SS Adam Everett
That certainly looks better than last year's lineup, but the obvious problem is that moving Cuddyer into the infield means Craig Monroe becomes an everyday player, unless another bat is brought in (and considering they're paying Monroe $3.82 million, that's highly unlikely). Monroe is a decent risk as a 4th OF, platoon guy (if overly expensive), but with him playing every day, you've got back to back guys at the bottom of the order who will almost certainly fail to provide a .300 on-base percentage.
*The big names on the Mitchell report are obviously Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, Miguel Tejada, Mo Vaughn, Kevin Brown, Brian Roberts and some others.
There were quite a few Twins on the list, notably Rondell White, Chuck Knoblauch, Chad Allen, Denny Neagle and Dan Naulty.
The only really smoking hot gun to come from the report, in my opinion, is the direct testimony of injection on Clemens and Pettite by a trainer. None of those Twins names surprise me, and I still am almost certain that Marty Cordova and Bobby Kielty, among others, used steroids.
I could probably write for two hours about the moral implications of steroids, who's at fault, what should be done and so forth, but in short, my general opinion is that the game is at fault. Players can't be blamed for trying to keep up. A lot of guys - Naulty is a good example - took steroids literally to survive in the game, to put food on the table. It isn't always a case of just trying to hit more homeruns. The game allowed an environment to come into existence in which players had to make the impossibly difficult choice of taking steroids to keep up, or find another job.
If I were a guy hitting .260 in Triple-A, I absolutely would've taken steroids to bump me up to a level where I could reach the big leagues. At the time, it wasn't a lot different than scuffing a ball or maybe even stealing signs.
Now that it's illegal they can punish, but any use that took place before testing is the fault of the game's administration, not the players.
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