The Twins seem intent on landing a 3B, even though it's not their most glaring hole, so let's look at the most talked about candidates.
| Player | PA | OBP | SLG | HR | SO | BB | OPS+ | VORP |
| Beltre | 418 | .330 | .432 | 16 | 62 | 41 | 107 | 12.7 |
| Blalock | 119 | .336 | .454 | 4 | 12 | 1 | 111 | 4.0 |
| C. Blake | 364 | .364 | .464 | 11 | 67 | 33 | 119 | 19.9 |
Blalock has a gigantic question mark surrounding his ability to even help out down the stretch, when healthy he is as good as the other two on the list, but he hasn't been healthy for much this season or last.
The decision for Beltre or Blake looks cut and dry based on those numbers. Blake is having a better offensive year, but when you look at their career 1st half/2nd half splits you see that Blake thrives in the first half and Beltre in the second. Beltre is also under contract for next year, which may or may not affect the Twins decision making, and is touted as being superior defensively, although the numbers don't bear that out. At one point in his career Beltre was an elite fielder, but he hasn't been that since 2006.
2004 was his biggest year at the plate as well as in the field, and the two years preceding that were his two worst full years as a pro, offensively and defensively. The difference in the defensive down turn in 2002-2003 and the one taking place now is that he's performing above his career levels offensively now. That leads me to believe that his defensive down turn is independent of a general downturn in overall performance. I don't think his defensive skills will evaporate; rather it looks like he's now just an average fielder, with numbers very similar to Blake's.
Beltre and Blalock are under club control for next year, Beltre is under contract and Blalock has a club option, so their respective teams may not feel any urgency to make a move and the Indians may not want to ship us Blake simply because we share a division. Beltre is the only one, because he's under contract for next year and he's only 29, that I would consider parting with any top-shelf prospects for.
I still maintain that 3B isn't the Twins biggest weakness, as long as Buscher doesn't regress too much he's better than replacement level talent, which is a lot more than can be said for Carlos Gomez who's been wasting AB's all year. Gomez is among the league leaders in SO's and lowest OBP. I don't doubt his talent, but he clearly needs to work on his plate discipline down in Rochester before playing every day at the major league level. The problem for the Twins is that right now they don't have anyone to replace him with, Cuddyer is still hurt and Jason Pridie's SO/BB ratio is just as bad in AAA as Gomez's is. If they can get an outfielder, my suggestion is Adam Dunn, for a similar price to what the Yankee's paid for Nady, it would be worth it.
Having said all that, the Twins best move might just be to stand pat and continue to build for 2010 and the new ballpark.
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