Major league job boards don’t exist, at least not for players. You can’t walk past some mythical player’s union clubhouse, see a sign that says “Team seeking middle reliever, please tear off a number and call it to apply,” and find a job that way. The team calls you, or emails your agent, and they do that after working up their own list of targets independently. Or at least, that’s what they tell us. But after seeing the Minnesota Twins acquire the same type of player for the third year running, as they did in signing Harrison Bader to a one-year deal this week, I’m not so sure.
Bader’s deal is for one year and $6.25 million, with bonuses that could kick in another $2 million. That’s a reasonable deal for a quality backup, and that’s exactly what Bader looks like. He’s put up between 300 and 450 plate appearances in six of the past seven seasons – the only year he missed that mark was in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign. At first, that was because he couldn’t stay on the field, but in recent years, he’s turned into a defensive specialist and righty platoon bat.
How much do the Twins like those two roles? Well, in 2023, they traded for Michael A. Taylor, a defensive specialist and righty platoon bat, and then gave him 110 starts in center field. Sure, they had Byron Buxton, but that year Buxton never took the field, all the better to protect him from injuries. Taylor was so good that he got a new deal in free agency to head to Pittsburgh – so the Twins went out and traded for Manuel Margot, a “defensive specialist” and righty platoon bat.
I put defensive specialist in quotation marks because Margot’s defense hadn’t graded out well in years when the Twins traded for him. They still ran him out for a total of 68 starts and 113 games in the outfield, both to give Buxton a rest and to platoon with lefties in left and right field. Unfortunately for both sides, Margot was incredibly disappointing – .238/.289/.337 with sketchy defense – so the Twins were right back to the drawing board in trying to recapture that Taylor magic.
Enter Bader, whose game bears more than a passing resemblance to Taylor’s. This isn’t a Margot situation, where defensive reputation and quality don’t line up. Bader is certifiably fantastic out there. The last time Statcast graded his defense as below average in center was never. The last time it thought he was less than a +6 outfielder was 2020, and he would have easily eclipsed that given reasonable playing time. Before that? You have to go back to his rookie year, 2016, and that was a minuscule 151 inning cup of coffee.
This isn’t one of those defensive grades that takes you a while to wrap your head around. Bader grades out well in loud ways. He has tremendous burst, excellent straight line speed, a knack for making great sliding catches, and a cannon of an arm that he isn’t afraid to use. The only real issue the Twins might have in fielding alignments is that Bader has been so good for his whole career that he hasn’t played any outfield position other than center since 2018, so his lines and reactions might be a little rusty in the corners.
And what he can do in the corners will matter a lot if Minnesota runs back their plan from last year. Buxton made more than half the team’s starts in center, a huge jump from his recent trend, and both outfield corners needed righty platoon help. Even with Max Kepler departing in free agency, that’ll probably be true again in 2025; we’re projecting Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach as the everyday starters in right and left, and more obvious platoon situations might not exist. The two of them can’t hit lefties even a little, and they’re both below average in the field. Finding someone to take some of those at-bats against southpaws isn’t a luxury good for the Twins; it’s closer to a daily essential.
Is Bader the guy you want taking those at-bats? Not really, if I’m being honest. Earlier in his career, Bader showed some offensive promise, but we’re a long way from those days. In recent years, he’s traded power for contact; he’s walking less, striking out less, and hitting for fewer extra bases. Is that intentional? It’s hard to say for sure, but if it is, I think it’s a great idea. Bader had some severe strikeout issues as a young major leaguer, and his power was never truly exceptional. I’m not saying he should try to put up a batting line like he did in 2024 – hitting that poorly lost him a starting job – but I do agree with the style of hitting he’s employing. When you field like he does, you mostly need to avoid disaster at the plate to keep finding a job. He’s doing exactly that.
Would you, as the GM of a contending team, employ a righty projected to hit for a 100 wRC+ against lefties and play an outfield corner? You likely would not. I understand that defense plays even in the corners and that not using him as a platoon option would be even worse, but surely there’s someone in the upper minors who can provide average offense when given the edge of hitting right-on-left.
No, Bader’s real value is in the Buxton insurance he gives the Twins. They obviously dearly value this insurance, and given Buxton’s injury history, it’s easy to see why. You never buy insurance hoping to cash it in, and the Twins are in that boat here. If things go well, Bader is going to play center field much less frequently than he has in the past. He’ll fill in when Buxton DHs, of course, but a healthy Buxton will mean a sidelined Bader. That’s how it has to be if you want a true center fielder to play when your starting center fielder can’t. For $6.25 million, the Twins are upgrading from throwing Willi Castro out there, which is what they did when Margot couldn’t hack it, to a bona fide elite defensive option.
Castro might take some of those outfield corner platoon at-bats away from Bader, in fact. But he himself is part of an injury-backup chain; with Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa both no strangers to the IL, Castro and Brooks Lee will probably be hopping around the infield on a regular basis. Managing the Twins roster is going to be quite difficult this year, but having a versatile option like Castro and a defensive ace off the bench like Bader goes a long way towards making the inevitable injury issues manageable.
Is this the most consequential signing of the offseason? Probably not. It might be one of the most consequential in the AL Central, though. It’s been a quiet winter pretty much across the board, and this very specific issue has cropped up for the Twins on a yearly basis. In signing Bader, the Twins are telling us that the thing they want most this winter, with limited budget to allocate, is a backup plan for when they’re less than 100% healthy. Given the recent health issues they’ve had, I can’t help but concur.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com