Minnesota Twins: Logan Morrison heads to disabled list as Ehire Adrianza comes off of it
By Nate Palmer
The Minnesota Twins had to make another disabled list announcement Thursday as Logan Morrison swapped spots with Ehire Adrianza.
The Minnesota Twins just can’t seem to avoid injuries to their starting players. Another one of their offseason free-agent additions, Logan Morrison, is hitting the disabled list with what is being labelled as a left hip impingement.
This news will likely not make very many Twins fans upset as Morrison, a once shiny new exciting free-agent signing has struggled for most of 2018 at the plate. In 80 games and 300 plate appearances, Morrison is slashing an embarrassing .193/.287/.367 with a slightly more respectable 11 home runs. It is that low production that has caused many fans to call for Morrison’s benching or even a DFA.
Bad offensive numbers are bad news for a player like Morrison who doesn’t offer up much more in value other than what he brings to the table with his bat. What has been the most perplexing about Morrison’s batting stats is that there are some measurements that say he should be having much better success than he is having.
As you can see in the tweet below from Twins Daily’s Parker Hageman, Statcast is a much bigger fan of Morrison than many actual fans. In their data for expected outcomes, Morrison should have hit the ball close to a .258 batting average and .512 slugging percentage.
This is also about the worst time that this injury could come for the Twins. If there was any chance of trading Morrison for something in return at the trade deadline he needed to start turning some of those Statcast expected stats into real life on the field stats quickly to be attractive to a contending team.
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Ehire Adrianza healthy
As Morrison lands on the disabled list, Ehire Adrianza comes off of it. While Morrison’s injury couldn’t come at a much worst time, Adrianza’s return comes at a very good time. As Brian Dozier and Eduardo Escobar‘s names are being bounced around in trade rumors it will be good for the Twins to know Adrianza can still produce like he was before his own DL stint.
In the middle of one of his most used and most productive season, Adrianza is slashing .261/.314/.410. Those are very good numbers for a player that was expected to be a bench utility player but instead got thrown into the starting shortstop role after Jorge Polanco‘s suspension and Miguel Sano‘s struggles.
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Even though the Twins may turn to a player like Nick Gordon if Dozier or Escobar are ultimately traded. Also knowing they have a healthy and productive Adrianza to shuffle in and out of the lineup will help them feel better about the product they are putting on the field, even in a losing season.