The Derek Falvey era officially began a few weeks ago with his first offseason move. That move was to sign a catcher who hit .210 last year to a three year deal. I've been trying to look at this positively, convince myself that Falvey is a genius, that he knows something we don't. Unfortunately, after looking at this from all angles, it doesn't look good.
Let's start with the good stuff: Castro is an excellent pitch framer, stealing 96 strikes last year, according to StatCorner. This is a huge upgrade over Suzuki who, according to that same site, cost the Twins 38 strikes last year. Castro is a former first round pick and was an all star in 2013, so we know he has the potential to be pretty good. Also, his name is an anagram for "On taco jars". Being the optimist that I am, I'm going to consider that a good sign.
Now for the bad news: Just about everything else. That all star 2013 season was inflated by a .351 BABIP, a mark he hasn't come within 50 points of in three seasons since then. On a related note, in those seasons, he's hit .222, .211, and .210 respectively.
So what alternatives did the Twins have? One option would have been to go after Wilson Ramos. He won't be ready to start the season because of his ACL injury, but that injury significantly brought down his price range to the two year 12 million dollar deal that he signed with Tampa Bay. If he fully recovers he could be a major deal. Another option could have been resigning Kurt Suzuki to a one year deal, dealt with one more year of him and then gone after Yasmani Grandal, who's basically a rich man's Castro.
While we're on the subject of things the Twins should do, here's one more: Trade Dozier. His value's never going to be higher than it is right now. This is a very streaky hitter who's going to be 30 in May. Jorge Polanco seems to be ready to play fulltime and dealing Dozier would allow the Twins to address their more pressing dire pitching situation.
We saw a less extreme version of this play out with Plouffe over the last few years. Between 2014 and 2015 he hit .251 with 36 homers and a whopping 75 doubles. If the Twins had traded him after either of those seasons they could have gotten a few prospects for him at the very least, but they hung onto him and released him last month. Let's hope they don't make the same mistake with Dozier.
