Minnesota Twins: How to Make Willians Astudillo Theme Night Better

The Minnesota Twins will have Willians Astudillo Theme Night on Friday, April 26, 2019. This would be better if he started more than every third day.

Mookie Betts can light up a stadium. So can Mike Trout. However, the truly exciting player in today’s MLB — the most interesting, anyway — is Willians Astudillo, “La Tortuga (the turtle)” of the Minnesota Twins.

So it’s deserving that Astudillo will get his own day.

The Twins have announced that Friday, April 26 will be La Tortuga Night. That night the Twins play the Baltimore Orioles, and if you purchase tickets through a special package, you will receive a La Tortuga shirt with, of course, a turtle shell encircling his number on the back side.

This is great! Astudillo is by far one of the most interesting players in baseball. If you haven’t seen his home run gawk from the Venezuelan Winter League in January, you should. It’s awesome unless you don’t like emotion in baseball.

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On top of that, Astudillo ran out of his helmet twice in the same spring training game this year in March. He really just wants to show that “chubby people can run, too.”

But first, full disclosure: Willians Astudillo is on my fantasy team. If you happen to wonder why then keep reading.

Astudillo doesn’t strikeout or walk. He’s allergic to everything except swinging the bat.

In 2018, over 97 plate appearances, he had two walks and three strikeouts. He also had a fantastic .355 batting average. A catcher who hits for average is rare, rare like a “Pegasus” and “Kraken” subletting a condo together.

It just doesn’t happen these days.

But here’s what would be even better than an Astudillo-themed night: playing him every day, or at least 4-5 days a week. The Twins have three catchers on their roster: Jason Castro, Mitch Garver, and Astudillo.

Castro is considered the best defensive catcher, and Garver the catcher of the future, even though at 28, he’s a year older than Astudillo. Since 2014, the highest Castro has batted in a season was .242. Garver is neither the best with a bat or behind the plate amongst the Twins catchers.

Sure, Astudillo doesn’t walk much, but he also doesn’t strikeout. He puts the ball in play. He moves runners. Hits and runs knock pitchers out of games faster than making them belabor pitches to batters who don’t swing while fans get bored.

Now, of course, Astudillo’s numbers from 2018 can’t be sustainable, can they? They have to regress to the norm; unless that is Astudillo’s norm.

Maybe it’s only a coincidence, but in the first two games of the season, with Castro and Garver each catching a game apiece, the Twins scored three combined runs. In the third game, with Astudillo starting at catcher, the Twins scored nine runs. In that game, he had two doubles, two runs scored, and two RBIs.

Astudillo has also played at every position in his professional career except shortstop. He can be moved around the field while the Twins get daily use from his bat.

Now, the Minnesota Twins are pretty set at positions, and when Miguel Sano comes back from the Injured List to man third base, they’ll also have super utility-man Marwin Gonzalez to move around the field while others rest. But insane hand-eye coordination like Astudillo’s doesn’t deserve to sit on the bench.

Astudillo needs to play. Every. Day.