Is Dansby Swanson a Viable Alternative to Carlos Correa?
If the Twins have to pivot away from Correa, is there a free-agent option out there who makes sense?
It’s about 8 degrees from where I sit this morning, but the heat is turned all the way up on the Minnesota Twins after the San Diego Padres swooped in and handed shortstop Xander Bogaerts an 11-year deal worth $280 million early Thursday morning.
Bogaerts went from being a potential fallback option for the Twins in their Carlos Correa pursuits to perhaps a thorn in their side, as this will likely permit super agent Scott Boras to tighten the screws further as multiple teams pursue the superstar shortstop.
In many cases, clarity can be a good thing. In this case, however, leaving teams holding a bag of cash with a dwindling number of impact free agents available can lead teams to do some pretty drastic, rash things.
You know, like signing a 30-year-old shortstop to an 11-year deal.
It’s clear the Twins like Correa. It seems as though he likes them, too. But the shortstop pool is down to two elite talents — Correa and Dansby Swanson.
The Twins have shown interest in Swanson — which is perhaps news to many — according to Braves MLB.com reporter Mark Bowman.
There was never much chatter about the Twins signing Trea Turner — for good reason, it appears — and after Correa, it seemed as though Bogaerts was the team’s No. 2 choice.
But getting a mention from the team reporter of the squad Swanson most recently played with sure seems noteworthy, right?
Maybe the Twins are playing Boras a bit in his own game by feigning interest in another player when the whole room knows they’re smitten with the original guy. Who knows?
But is Swanson a viable alternative to Correa for the Twins?
There’s a lot to unpack here.
Swanson is coming off an incredible season for the Braves, one in which he slashed .277/.321/.447 with 25 home runs, 96 RBI, 18 stolen bases and 99 runs scored. He’s hit 52 home runs in the last two seasons, and while he isn’t much of an on-base threat, he’s stellar defensively and is coming off his first All-Star bid as a 28-year-old in 2022.
Here’s a look at his defense, by the way:
Swanson plays virtually every day, including 382 of a possible 384 games played in the last three seasons, and he’s hit .265/.324/.451 over that span for a 108 OPS+. Add to that his stellar defense, as he won his first Gold Glove this season, and it’s no surprise he was a plus-5.7-win player according Baseball Reference this season and plus-6.4 wins via Fangraphs.
Simply put, he’s an incredible talent who might be a bit underrated due to his career numbers, defense being a big part of his game and the fact that he doesn’t walk terribly much.
My initial inkling to dive into Swanson came from friend of the program Russell Dorsey, who has been a Cubs beat reporter in the past and now is a cohost of “The Rally” which is on Bally Sports every weekday.
His breakdown of Swanson is really strong here:
In some ways, I sort of get a Marcus Semien vibe from Swanson. If Swanson’s offensive breakout is legit, it’s probably not fair to hold the three seasons against him from 2017-19 where he had an OPS+ of 68, 87 and 89, respectively. His career OPS+ of 95 is perfectly fine for a solid defensive shortstop, but maybe not the kind of one teams would want to commit seven years and, say, $175 million to.
Semien came into free agency heading into his age-31 season — two years older than Swanson — with a career OPS+ of 109 (good, but not close to his 131 mark in 2021) and still landed seven years and $175 million from the Rangers, who promptly had him move to second base.
That’s not just a big contract for a shortstop; that’s a monstrous contract for a second baseman. But now’s not the time to discuss that.
To be candid, I wrote the sentence about “not the kind of one teams would want to commit seven years and, say, $175 million to” regarding Swanson before circling back to remind myself what contract Semien received — and I was pleasantly surprised to see they were the same.
Semien’s raw numbers might not have been all that pretty compared to his 2021 numbers, but he was still nearly a six-win player via Baseball Reference and I’m thinking teams would be elated to get the same from Swanson in 2023.
Swanson would also help make the Twins’ offense less left-handed as a righty, something that certainly wouldn’t necessarily be make-or-break on a contract of this size to a player of this pedigree, but it’s a nice secondary piece.
It would also be swapping out a former No. 1 pick (Correa in 2012) for another (Swanson in 2015) while saving the Twins some cash in the meantime.
I’m not saying saving cash is great in general — go get your studs and pay the freight — but if these savings allow the team to, say, stretch the budget for a Carlos Rodon or, perhaps more prudently, sign Chris Bassitt, I think it’s a slam-dunk move and frankly, it’s possibly more efficient in the long-term.
There will be a desire to rage if the Twins miss out on Correa — and it’ll probably be amplified if they were to sign Swanson first. Maybe they miss out on both, sign Elvis Andrus and manage to land Carlos Rodon.
Maybe they do none of that. There’s so much we don’t know yet.
But a path to, say, Bassitt and Swanson is at least to me every bit as desirable as the path to Correa and, say, no other starting pitcher or someone like Jordan Lyles.