At minimum, he’s run out the same top of the order every day against righty starters—Matt Wallner, Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Trevor Larnach—though that alleged consistency hasn’t done much to help them as a group (note to Gregg: don’t let your bias show too strongly).
[Note to readers: the foregoing note to Gregg was from Gregg, not your trusty editor. I keep telling him to just let his rampant bias flow.] {Note to editor: Can we please handle this in private? Greggory.}
Within that pattern is an encouraging development: all four are playing every day (other than Wallner and Larnach, against the one lefty starter that they’ve faced).
The bottom five spots in the lineup have varied, but there’s been a level of consistency even there.
Willi Castro has played every day, although sometimes it’s been at second base, and other times at third. Ty France has started eight of nine games.
Ryan Jeffers and Christian Vázquez have alternated behind the plate, resulting in five starts for Jeffers and four for Vázquez.
Given the Twins’ limited bench, they have a narrow rotation in these lineups outside of the catcher spot.
Most days, two of Jose Miranda (six starts), Harrison Bader (six), and Edouard Julien (five) will start, minus the odd start by Mickey Gasper (two, though one was in place of France at first). DaShawn Keirsey Jr. has not started a game this season.
At first glance, the back end of the lineup appears scattershot, only repeating one time in the first nine games (Games 1 and 3: Jeffers, France, Castro, Miranda, Bader). However, some “rules” emerge, if you’ve stared at the lineups as long as I have ahead of writing this.
If you’ve ever done those brain teasers that go something like “Arrange these 5 boxes, the green and blue boxes can’t be next to each other, the red box and yellow box must be next to each other, etc.,” you’ll know what I’m talking about.
And those rules probably inform us a bit on how Baldelli views his options (though let’s not get carried away; this is more a fun exercise than a research paper).
The Catchers (Jeffers and Vázquez)
At the beginning of the season, this was pretty straightforward. When Jeffers started, he hit 5th. When Vázquez started, he hit 9th.
Jeffers has moved around a bit since the opening couple of series, as he’s now also hit 8th and 6th, but that can be explained by two of the below players. Vázquez is going to hit 9th whenever he starts. That’s pretty simple.
Ty France
France has only hit 5th or 6th, and there’s a pretty clear pattern as to which spot he hits in: if Jeffers is hitting 5th, France hits 6th.
If Jeffers isn’t in that spot, then it’s France. The last four games that France has started, he’s hit 5th. He’s been spraying the ball all over the field, and even though he hasn’t been good this year (.520 OPS), he’s been better than many of the other hitters on this list, so his spot has held steady.
Willi Castro
Castro is one of three players (Buxton, Correa) to start all 10 Twins games, which includes the nine they’ve played versus righties thus far.
He batted 7th the first four games, moved up to 6th (behind France) the next three, hit 5th the day France sat, and then dropped back down to 7th in the most recent game. His positioning can be attributed mostly to one factor: his handedness.
In lineups with only two lefty hitters (Wallner and Larnach), Castro will almost always hit 7th by default. He’s better against righties, so having him sandwiched between two righties protects him (and the team) from lefty relievers, though to a lesser extent than Wallner and Larnach. Having the three of them bat 1-4-7 spreads them out, and it’s a consistent pattern of Baldelli’s lineup construction over his tenure.
I’m relatively confident in this, because once Julien was added to the lineup (Games 4-8), Castro began hitting higher up, but then dropped back to 7th when Julien sat (with the exception of Game 4, when Jeffers hit 5th, bumping France to 6th, leaving Castro and Julien to hit 7th and 8th, because we already know the France and Jeffers rules). Castro has been hitting higher than Jeffers of late, as well, likely because he’s simply performed better, being one of the team’s most consistent hitters in this young season.
Harrison Bader
Bader has played a lot, and he’s leading the team in OPS—pushing up against 1.000, at .988 with three home runs. However, he’s been a weak hitter with a great glove for most of his career, relegating him to the bottom of the lineup, because you, I, and Baldelli all lack faith that he’ll continue to be the club’s most effective hitter. As such, he’s been relegated to the 9th spot—unless Vázquez starts. Then, he’s 8th. It’s a pretty simple rule.
Edouard Julien
Julien, the third true lefty when he starts, has been mostly relegated to the 7th spot, for the rule discussed in the Castro blurb—he’s a lefty. Spacing him, Wallner, and Larnach out with two righties between them protects the lineup. There was the game in which Jeffers pushed France, Castro, and Julien down, but the rule holds pretty consistent.
Jose Miranda
Fans are split on Miranda’s role and potential, but it seems that management isn’t. He got starts over Julien early in the season while the Canadian was dealing with the stomach flu, but he mostly hit 8th, even falling to 9th when Vázquez and Bader both sat.
Miranda did hit 6th in the most recent game, but that was out of default by the rules discussed here: France hits 5th, Castro hits 7th without Julien, Bader hits 8th when Vázquez catches, because Vázquez always hits 9th.
Mickey Gasper
He hit 6th once and 8th once, and you can basically backtrack through the rules to figure out why. Game 8 was a little wonky, but if you look at it, it makes sense, given Jeffers’s and Castro’s differing performance levels.
Now obviously, all of this will change over the season, or when Buxton and Correa aren’t in the lineup, or when Royce Lewis comes back and probably assumes the 5th spot. But it is a fun exercise to try to tease apart the lineup construction logic. Is it super meaningful? I’m skeptical, but it is something that a lot of people care about.
