{"id":40868,"date":"2021-01-26T20:56:53","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T01:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=40868"},"modified":"2021-01-26T21:02:50","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T02:02:50","slug":"andrelton-simmons-signs-with-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2021\/01\/26\/andrelton-simmons-signs-with-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrelton Simmons Signs With Minnesota Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shortstop <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/simmoan01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andrelton Simmons<\/a><\/strong> has reportedly agreed to a new contract with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2021\/01\/20\/minnesota-twins-sign-j-a-happ\/\" target=\"_self\">Minnesota Twins<\/a> on Tuesday evening. Simmons signs for one year and $10.5 million. The 2020 shortstop free agent class pales in comparison to the 2021 class, and while Simmons is not in the level of that class, he is still a high-value sign for the Twins, who will play him at SS and move <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/polanjo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jorge Polanco<\/a><\/strong> to multiple positions. Simmons spent the previous five seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/mlb-teams\/los-angeles-angels\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Angels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Andrelton Simmons in Agreement with the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Twins?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Twins<\/a> for 1 yr, $10.5M. He will play SS. Jorge Polanco will play multiple positions<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Joelsherman1\/status\/1354239066385088516?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 27, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Defensive Prowless<\/h2>\n<p>Although Simmons did not have a great 2020 with the glove, he has long been known as a defensive standout at shortstop. His four Gold Glove awards certainly prove that point. Additionally, both old-school and new-school metrics support Simmons&#8217;s standout defensive ability, even after they illustrate his down season.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, his fielding percentage of .960 was below the league average of .973 and his range was also below average. As per more modern numbers, his defensive runs saved sat at -2 and his <a href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/andrelton-simmons-592743?stats=statcast-r-fielding-mlb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">outs above average<\/a> was -1. Simmons only played in 30 of the possible 60 games so it may not be worth putting tremendous stock into his 2020 performance.<\/p>\n<p>Still, his career defensive runs saved sits at nearly 200, and he accumulated 44 outs above average from 2017-2019. The league average range factor per game in Simmons&#8217;s nine-year career is 4.13. In that span, his RF\/G is 4.34.<\/p>\n<p>2020 was a small sample for all and even smaller for Simmons. Therefore, it is safe to expect a performance closer to his career resume as he enters his age-31 season.<\/p>\n<h2>Offensive Competency<\/h2>\n<p>The bat of Andrelton Simmons is not as a good as his glove, but he is still reliable at the plate. He doesn&#8217;t hit for power, with a career .379 slugging percentage. In an era where OPS is a heavily-relied-upon statistic to evaluate offense, Simmons&#8217;s lack of power leads to below-league-average numbers.<\/p>\n<p>However, his batting average and on-base percentage illustrate that he is not a total liability with the bat, even if he can&#8217;t hit for power. He is a career .269 hitter with a .317 on-base percentage. He has hit a respectable .280 or higher three times in his five seasons as an Angel with a .330 or higher on-base percentage just as many times.<\/p>\n<p>Although his offense does not pose as a significant threat, Andrelton Simmons will still provide good production to the Twins because of his defense, making him a good value signing.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: <a id=\"OOzqhLXJRotrmu5CXd9i4w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/806827198\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'OOzqhLXJRotrmu5CXd9i4w',sig:'mnjiqs0TorgPq-77_bQ2E7U7SKZHE-Ll1-cgfebXC_g=',w:'594px',h:'392px',items:'806827198',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shortstop Andrelton Simmons has reportedly agreed to a new contract with the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday evening. Simmons signs for one year and $10.5 million. The 2020 shortstop free agent class pales in comparison to the 2021 class, and while Simmons is not in the level of that class, he is still a high-value sign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2758,"featured_media":40886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,13],"tags":[2256,941,174,4543],"class_list":["post-40868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-twins","tag-andrelton-simmons","tag-latest-mlb-news","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-twins-infield"],"modified_by":"DJ Kleinbard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}