MAY 2: Surgery is on the table for Sano, who officially went on the IL this morning with a left knee sprain, according to Baldelli (Helfand link). The Twins will make the determination of whether a procedure is necessary this week. If Sano were to go under the knife, he’d still be expected to return this season, tweets Joe Trezza of MLB.com.
MAY 1: The Twins will be placing first baseman Miguel Sano on the 10-day injured list, manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters (including Betsy Helfand of The St. Paul Pioneer Press). Sano is dealing with a sore left knee. Catcher Jose Godoy will also be optioned to Triple-A, so the Twins will get their roster from 28 players down to 26 by tomorrow’s deadline.
Sano has missed four of Minnesota’s last five games with the injury, suffered during the game-ending rundown in the Twins’ 5-4 walkoff win over the Tigers on Tuesday. After sitting out three games, Sano was the starting first baseman Saturday but was removed from the game during the seventh inning.
A timeline isn’t yet known for when Sano might be able to return to the lineup, but this absence could serve as something of a reset to his 2022 season. Sano has been ice cold at the plate, hitting only .093/.231/.148 over his first 65 plate appearances. As horrific as those numbers look, Sano has also been rather unusually unlucky, with only a .121 BABIP and a .196 wOBA far below his .344 xwOBA. Sano’s xwOBA is actually above the league average, and his hard-contact numbers (hard-hit ball percentage, barrel percentage) and walk rate have all been excellent.
Though this indicates some hope Sano can rebound once he returns from the IL, the Twins will be shorthanded at first base in his absence. Alex Kirilloff would normally take over the corner but Kirilloff is himself injured, currently on a minor league rehab assignment for a wrist issue. If losing Sano and Kirilloff wasn’t enough for the Twins, Kyle Garlick also left today’s game due to calf tightness, so Minnesota might also have a gap to fill in the outfield depth chart.
Luis Arraez had never played first base prior to this season, but the utilityman has been filling in for Sano this week and looks like Minnesota’s top choice as the temporary replacement. Baldelli also suggested that third baseman Gio Urshela or catcher Gary Sanchez could get some work at first base. Urshela has played a handful of games at the position during his career, while Sanchez has played three games as a first baseman during his pro career (and none since 2017).
Suckitis?
Is he getting lap band surgery?
He may as well get that done if he has to be out after getting the knee done. The reduced weight will put less strain on BOTH of the knees.
So the IL is 10 days for positional, and 15 for pitchers? Or the other way around?
The latter. They lengthened it for pitchers to try and reduce roster manipulation by cycling pitchers through the 10-day IL.
*PLYMOUTH PARAKEETS
We really need the downvote back for this guy…
Pretty much any other MLB player would be in the Minors but for some reason, Sano can strikeout at a high rate, hit under .100 and still be in the Majors. It’s time to move on from this clown. I wanted him to do well, but he is who he is, and that is not a Major League caliber player.
Well you can’t just send him down. But you could very well DFA him. I can’t imagine the Twins are going to pick up his $14 million option so I don’t know why they don’t just go ahead and make the move now and move on. I doubt anyone would even claim him through waivers TBH
If he cleared waivers, he’d probably elect free agency. Some rebuilding team would absolutely give him a shot on a low-risk deal. Worst case scenario is he continues to suck. Best case scenario is you get the guy who puts up a league average-ish OBP and 30 homers.
Is Babip really just “unlucky” when he’s slow and refuses to hit against a basic shift? You can hit it as hard as you want but when it’s hit right to someone, that’s not bad luck.
He is what he is. He takes home run swings at everything so when he makes contact it’s hard contact. But it’s not typically in a gap. Combine that with a high strikeout rate, poor defense, and a carbon copy player in Gary Sanchez already in the same lineup, just what on earth is the incentive for keeping him around?
I mean, he’s never been below .285 in any season in his career. Even for someone like him, a sub-.200 mark is a bit unlucky.
He’s also never batted .093 or slugged .148.
And his fly ball% has never been above 34.6% and now it’s closer to 45%.
He’s hitting way fewer ground balls and hitting way more balls into the air. I’ve also only seen him intentionally go against the shift one time this year.
I just wholly reject low babip being so attributable to luck. I think it only goes one way. Meaning a higher than expected babip is likely luck. A much lower than expected babip is likely you hitting balls right where they’re defending you, or not running out close plays
Yeah, but sub-.200? That’s unsustainable in any sense. There have only been 23 cases where a player had a sub-.200 BABIP in 300+ plate appearances dating back to the end of WWII. Only two of those cases had 500+ plate appearances. In 2020, Mitch Keller had a .104 opponent BABIP and walked more batters than he struck out. Small sample size, but there’s no way you can convince me he got extremely lucky and batters were extremely unlucky.
Sano is a prototype White Sox player.
They can pick him up to play 2B, and serve as a SS if Anderson gets hurt.
Prototype Samuel comment. Blah blah blah blah White Sox blah.
Neither Sano or Sanchez will be with the Twins in 2023.
Been watching him since he came up. Best year for contact was his rookie year. Dropped off every year since. If he’d just put the ball in play 20% more who know what could be achieved.
Just like with most everyone on the Twins in 2019, he’s living off the hype the local media gave the “Bomba Squad”.
Miguel Sano and Gary Sanchez for Dominic Smith and JD Davis.
Interesting, but no
Showalter would kick the GM’s ass over that
[something happens]
Twins: Luis, you handle that!
Just pay him his money and let him go. With this update about needing surgery there’s just no more reason to keep him around. It’s an obvious decline on the option
SaNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
The problem with Sano is that he’s 57 years old. What do you people expect from a 57 year old man? He just isn’t able to get the bat around like he did back in the 80s.
The problem is, no one holds him accountable and everyone keeps making excuses for him in regards to his weight and readiness to play. Even in this article, ‘hurt himself in the rundown’; first I’d heard of that. The original (real) story is he hurt himself during the celebration after he got his supposedly ‘breakthrough’ hit..
startribune.com/miguel-sanos-sore-knee-injured-lis…
Look at the picture associated with the article. Does that look like a man who is remotely in shape enough to be playing professional baseball? Or a guy worried enough about his career to make some changes? Not to me.