Twins hope revolving door ends with Danny Valencia

MINNEAPOLIS -- For the majority of his baseball career, Danny Valencia has felt like he's had something to prove.

The third baseman said he wasn't heavily recruited by colleges out of high school and the Twins drafted him in the 19th round in 2006 out of the University of Miami. Valencia was touted for a couple of years as Minnesota's third baseman of the future, but the road to the Majors included many bumps along the way as well.

So the 26-year-old admits it's a little strange to head to Spring Training this month being labeled as the club's third baseman for 2011.

"It feels nice -- don't get me wrong, it is flattering," Valencia said during TwinsFest this past weekend. "At the same time, you can't get complacent in this game. You have to go out and you have to perform. I'm going to go do that. I'm going to go play hard. It's nice to hear, but at the same time, it's the results that keep you on the field."

The Twins have certainly been looking hard to find a consistent solution at third base since Corey Koskie departed as a free agent after the 2004 season.

Before Valencia emerged in late July as the club's everyday third baseman, the Twins had 18 different players start at the position over the past six seasons. The hope is that the club has found a long-term solution following Valencia's strong rookie season in which he hit .311 with seven home runs, 18 doubles and 40 RBIs. He batted .386 at Target Field and finished third in American League Rookie of the Year balloting.

"We expect him to take the job and run with it," manager Ron Gardenhire said last Friday. "He goes into camp as our third baseman, and I'm pretty sure he's going to leave as our third baseman. He should be fine. I'm looking forward to seeing him out on the field again.

"He was pretty impressive. He deserves that."

Valencia said that his competitiveness and his drive to prove himself has sometimes come out the wrong way. He acknowledged that he wasn't exactly the model teammate early in his career as he was focused on himself. His brashness was occasionally a problem. In one instance, he was benched at Class A Fort Myers toward the end of the 2007 season for being what Twins director of Minor Leagues Jim Rantz called "a distraction."

Valencia credits former Twins general manager and current senior adviser Terry Ryan for helping him see that he needed to change some things before he got to the Majors. One piece of advice that Ryan gave Valencia was that he needed to be seen and not heard.

"He's one of those guys that I always felt was in my corner," Valencia said. "When I was young, when I first came in '06 and '07, I had a bit of an attitude, maybe a little chip on my shoulder. He told me I needed to get rid of that. I worked hard on that to try to be a better teammate, a better guy in the clubhouse and I think I've done that."

The rookie was well-liked in the Twins clubhouse, but he certainly took his share of grief last season. Valencia joked that he financed the team's party with all of his fines in Kangaroo Court. He was subjected to the traditional rookie hazing, donning one of the more embarrassing costumes, and his teammates had a little fun with Valencia wearing sunglasses during an interview in the clubhouse by playing Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" when he came up to bat the next game.

Valencia has taken all of the chiding in good fun and he doesn't expect it to stop just because he's entering his second season with the team, although he joked that new teammate Tsuyoshi Nishioka will have the responsibility of toting the Kangaroo Court fine box around in 2011.

"I was the guy that got ragged on the most, but I think the way that I handled it, they respected that," Valencia said. "I looked up to a lot of those guys and I told them right from the get-go, 'I look up to you guys.' I may not have shown it the way I should have at the beginning but they knew that I genuinely cared and genuinely wanted to do what they wanted me to do."

While Valencia has worked hard to shed some of that brashness in the clubhouse, he acknowledges that he'll continue to carry that little chip on his shoulder while he's on the field and use it as motivation.

"On the field, I'm just as competitive as anybody else out there," Valencia said.

Valencia spent the early part of the winter working out in Boca Raton, Fla., but he recently headed down to Miami to work out with a few other Major Leaguers. That includes the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada and Royals outfielder Melky Cabrera.

In addition to picking the brains of some of the guys he's working out with now, Valencia has also been in constant contact with some of his Twins teammates -- including starter Carl Pavano. The two have talked quite a bit about Valencia's hitting approach and what Pavano sees in it from a pitcher's perspective.

For Valencia, it's all about trying to build off the success he had in 2010 to grow into an even better player in his second year in the big leagues.

"I've become more consistent," Valencia said. "I think I've always been able to play defense, but I have slacked a little at times. Consistency makes you a big league player. These guys up here are extremely consistent day in and day out. They stay out of those prolonged slumps and try to avoid those as much as possible. Consistency keeps you up here."



(mlb.com)