Free-agent first baseman Miguel Sano will host a showcase for interested clubs next Tuesday, repots Darren Wolfson of SKOR North. That marks the first update on the 6-foot-4 slugger since the Twins bought him out at the beginning of the offseason.
Sano is searching for a new team after 12 years in the Minnesota organization. Praised as a prospect for his prodigious power potential, he’s shown middle-of-the-order upside at his best. Sano has four 25-plus homer seasons on his résumé, including 34 longballs in just 105 games in 2019. The Twins signed him to a three-year, $30M extension after that monster year.
That extension didn’t go as the club envisioned. Sano’s longstanding strikeout concerns peaked in 2020, when he reached base at just a .278 clip while going down on strikes almost 44% of the time. He rebounded with a 30-homer season in 2021, albeit with a slightly below-average .312 OBP. Sano’s last season in the Twin Cities was a disaster, as a pair of right knee injuries limited to just 20 games and 71 plate appearances of .083/.211/.133 hitting. He didn’t play after July 29.
It’s clearly not the manner in which the former All-Star envisioned testing the open market for the first time. He’s a bounce-back target for teams seeking to bolster their first base depth. He’ll be limited to a low base salary on a big league deal at best, and it doesn’t seem out of the question he may need to accept a minor league contract with a non-roster spring training invite.
Sano turns 30 in May and has a career .234/.326/.482 line over parts of eight MLB campaigns. An extreme three-true-outcomes hitter, he’s walked at a quality 11.6% clip and struck out at a massive 36.4% rate while averaging 34 homers per 600 plate appearances (roughly the equivalent of one season of playing time).
Sano is one of a handful of buy-low first basemen still lingering on the market. Former AL batting champ Yuli Gurriel and MLB home run king Luke Voit are also looking for bounce-back opportunities after disappointing 2022 showings, while multi-positional players like Mike Moustakas and Donovan Solano also have ample first base experience.
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