CORDEL LEONARD KOSKIE | 3B | 1998-2004 | CAREER STATS
 
   G       PA      AVG      OBP      SLG     OPS+    WARP     WS
 816     3257     .280     .373     .463     115     38.2    108

A star baseball, hockey, and volleyball player growing up in Manitoba, Canada, the Twins used their 26th-round pick in the 1994 draft to select Corey Koskie out of Kwantlen College in British Columbia. He signed quickly and debuted at rookie-level Elizabethton as a 21-year-old, but then spent one full year at each of low Single-A, high Single-A, Double-A, and Triple-A, failing to receive any midseason promotions despite consistently putting up excellent numbers.

After finally reaching Double-A as a 24-year-old in 1997, Koskie batted .296/.408/.531 with 23 homers, 55 total extra-base hits, and 90 walks in 131 games to make the Eastern League All-Star team as the starting third baseman. He moved up to Triple-A in 1998, hitting .301/.365/.539 with 26 homers, 63 total extra-base hits, and 51 walks in 135 games before finally earning his first in-season promotion in the form of a September call-up to Minnesota.

When starter Frankie Rodriguez and reliever Dan Serafini combined to give up 10 runs while recording six outs against the Angels on September 9, 1998, Koskie came off the bench in the sixth inning to make his major-league debut, going 0-for-2 with two strikeouts after replacing Ron Coomer at third base. Koskie saw his next action three days later against the A's, pinch-hitting for Chris Latham in the eighth inning and singling to center field off Tim Worrell for his first career hit.

Koskie started seven of the final 15 games and didn't show much while going 4-for-29 (.138), but still broke camp with the Twins the next spring. Koskie played sparingly through midseason, starting just 41 of the team's first 81 games in large part because manager Tom Kelly didn't think much of his defense at third base. Fewer than half of those starts came at third base and at one point Koskie went nearly six weeks without a single start there as Coomer and Brent Gates manned the position.

The bulk of his sporadic early playing time came at designated hitter or right field (after Matt Lawton was injured), which allowed Koskie to at least show that his bat was clearly MLB-ready. He hit .301/.349/.462 through 81 games as one of the few capable hitters on a team that went on to rank dead last in the league offensively, yet totaled just 189 plate appearances. With the team 20-plus games out of the division race in early July, Kelly finally decided to make Koskie the regular third baseman.

Koskie continued to sit against most left-handed pitchers while starting 52 of the final 81 games, but more importantly each of the 52 starts came at third base. He batted .318/.421/.471 during that stretch, finishing the season at .310/.387/.468 in 117 games overall to lead the Twins in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage as a rookie. In fact, Marty Cordova (.285/.365/.464) was the only other hitter on the entire team who was even above average offensively.

Looking back, it's amazing how quickly Koskie went from playing right field or DH because his defense wasn't considered strong enough at third base to playing exclusively third base while being considered a very good defender there. Koskie never set foot in the outfield again after his rookie season and made a combined total of four starts at designated hitter over the next five years, all while establishing himself as one of the best, most underrated defensive third basemen in baseball.

The Opening Day starter at third base in 2000, Koskie hit .300/.400/.441 in 146 games for an offense that ranked second worst in the league. He was one of three above-average regulars on the entire team, along with Lawton and David Ortiz, and ranked fourth among AL third baseman in Value Over Replacement Player behind Troy Glaus, Travis Fryman, and Eric Chavez. Having mastered defense while emerging as the team's best hitter, Koskie moved on to developing his home-run power.

Koskie homered once every 24 at-bats in the minors, including 20-homer seasons at both Double-A and Triple-A, and batted .298/.388/.445 through his first two full big-league seasons. However, he managed just 21 homers in 845 at-bats, including nine homers in 474 at-bats during his sophomore campaign. That all changed in 2001 when Koskie put the finishing touches on his all-around game while having the finest year of his career as the Twins had their first winning season since 1992.

Perhaps sacrificing some batting average for power after hitting .310 and .300 in his first two seasons, Koskie batted .276/.362/.488 with 26 homers, 37 doubles, 103 RBIs, and 100 runs. He played 153 games, logging over 1,300 innings at third base, and shockingly stole 27 bases at an 82-percent clip. Koskie's VORP trailed only Glaus and Chavez among AL third basemen and along with Gary Gaetti in 1988 it was the best non-Harmon Killebrew season ever by a Twins third baseman.

Koskie's power dipped in 2002 without an increase in batting average and he missed a couple weeks with a hamstring injury that proved to be a sign of things to come when it came to his ability to stay on the field. Despite that, Koskie still managed to rank fourth among AL third baseman in VORP by hitting .267/.368/.447 with 15 homers, 37 doubles, and 72 walks in 140 games as the Twins won 94 games and the AL Central while advancing to the playoffs for the first time since 1991.

A strained back limited Koskie to just 131 games in 2003 and his 20-homer power failed to resurface, but his batting average and OBP returned to their 2000-2001 levels as he hit .292/.393/.452 to lead the Twins in OPS. Koskie turned 30 years old midway through the 2003 season, but between a rapidly balding head and increasingly slow gait had the look of an old man for whom doing nearly anything seemed to be a chore.

Koskie set a career-high with a .495 slugging percentage and smacked 25 homers in 2004, but saw his batting average dip to a career-low .251 while more injuries sidelined him for two weeks in May and three weeks in September. Despite showing plenty of signs that he was wearing down physically, Koskie actually played his best down the stretch, batting .281/.349/.607 from August 1 to the end of the season as the Twins held off the White Sox and Royals to win the division.

He then came up big in the Twins' third straight trip to the postseason, batting .308 with a .474 OBP in the ALDS while nearly becoming a hero against the Yankees. After winning Game 1 at Yankee Stadium behind Johan Santana's seven shutout innings, the Twins trailed 5-3 heading into the eighth inning of Game 2. Mariano Rivera came in and got a fly out from Shannon Stewart before striking out Jacque Jones, but Jones reached first base on a wild pitch.

Torii Hunter and Justin Morneau followed with back-to-back singles, cutting the Yankees' lead to 5-4 and bringing Koskie up with runners on the corners. Luis Rivas pinch-ran for Morneau, providing excellent speed as the go-ahead run at first base, and Koskie slashed a Rivera fastball into the left-field corner. Hunter jogged home with the tying run and Rivas had a chance to claim a lead that could have put the Twins up 2-0 in the series heading back to Minnesota.

Except the ball took a big bounce, hopping over the left-field wall for a ground-rule double that kept Rivas locked at third base and the game tied at 5-5. As Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said afterward: "They would have scored two, no doubt about it." Instead, Jason Kubel and Cristian Guzman stranded Rivas 90 feet away from the plate and Alex Rodriguez's 12th-inning double scored Derek Jeter with the game-winning run.

Instead of Koskie's hit off Rivera putting the Yankees on the verge of elimination, one bounce wiped away his series-changing moment and the Twins lost back-to-back games at the Metrodome to end their season. A pending free agent, that proved to be the final big hit of Koskie's career in Minnesota. In previewing the market that winter over at The Hardball Times, I wrote that Koskie was the "forgotten man among free-agent third basemen" and added:

Just looking at Koskie, you'd think he was all washed up. He does everything methodically, from walking to swinging a bat, and it often appears as though he's in a constant state of hurt. After every diving stop at third base that ends an inning, he rolls the ball back to the pitcher's mound and slowly ambles over to the dugout, like an old man who forgot his walker.

[...]

Through all the pain, through all the missed games, through all the "did Koskie just hurt himself again?" moments, he has been one of the most valuable third basemen in baseball over the last five years. ... What you get with Koskie is power, patience and defense, but it also comes with a price. He's going to miss games, he's going to go through stretches where he looks completely lost at the plate, and he's going to struggle against left-handed pitching.

If a team can overlook that, they'll have 130 games of great defense and solid hitting against right-handed pitchers, and they'll get it for a bargain price. With that said, there has probably never been a 32-year-old in baseball history who screamed out for a short-term, incentive-based contract quite like Koskie, who has spent a career teetering at the edge of the proverbial cliff.

The Twins showed little interest in re-signing Koskie and he returned to Canada by inking a three-year, $16.5 million contract with the Blue Jays, thanking fans for their support with a full-page newspaper ad. After hitting just .249/.337/.398 while missing 65 games with a broken thumb during his first season in Toronto, the Blue Jays made Koskie available for pennies on the dollar via trade and the Twins once again passed despite having a hole at third base that they eventually chose to fill with Tony Batista.

Koskie ended up with the Brewers, as the Blue Jays picked up most of his remaining contract and accepted a low-level prospect in return. He got off to a strong start in Milwaukee, batting .261/.343/.490 with 12 homers and 23 doubles in 76 games, but suffered a concussion after falling while chasing a pop-up on July 5. A debilitating bout with post-concussion syndrome followed, causing Koskie to miss the remainder of 2006 and all of 2007 while putting his career in serious doubt.

A free agent again, Koskie indicated in October that he hopes to play again, but added: "If I can't play, I at least want my life back." He's often criticized for his lack of durability, which is certainly fair to some extent and could be a big part of his legacy given the way that his career may end. However, it's also likely overstated. He missed 44 games during his final season in Minnesota, which was the lasting image that Koskie left fans with, but prior to that he had 550 plate appearances in four straight years.

His 3,257 plate appearances rank 20th in team history and ignoring his rookie year, when Koskie was kept out of the lineup by his manager rather than by injuries, he averaged 138 games per season in Minnesota. For comparison, Torii Hunter averaged 141 games in seven seasons after he became a full-time player. Hunter somehow has a reputation for being an iron man and had different types of injuries, but at the end of the day was essentially out of the lineup as often as the "injury prone" Koskie.

VORP is a "counting stat" that blends together performance and playing time, and lack of durability or not Koskie led the Twins in VORP three times and ranked second twice before finishing third during his final year. A .280/.373/.463 career hitter with the Twins, he ranked sixth, fourth, third, sixth, fourth, and seventh among AL third baseman in VORP during six full seasons in Minnesota. Among hitters with at least 3,000 plate appearances in a Twins uniform, only six posted a higher OPS+ than Koskie:

                      OPS+
Harmon Killebrew      146
Rod Carew             137
Tony Oliva            131
Kent Hrbek            128
Bob Allison           127
Kirby Puckett         124
COREY KOSKIE          115

That's some elite company and Koskie's 115 OPS+ ranks ahead of Gaetti, Hunter, Lawton, Earl Battey, Chuck Knoblauch, Tom Brunansky, Roy Smalley, Cesar Tovar, and Jacque Jones, among others. For comparison, Morneau has a Koskie-like 117 OPS+ in 2,299 career plate appearances. Beyond that, VORP and OPS+ only account for offense, and Koskie was an outstanding defender who added a ton of value with his glove at third base.

A clubhouse favorite whose numerous pranks included filling an unsuspecting Ortiz's underwear with peanut butter, Koskie spent part of his Twins career starring on horrible teams and then finished his time in Minnesota cultivating an "injury prone" label that he'll never shed. The end result is a career that goes down as one of the most underrated in team history and a player who ranks as the best Twins third baseman of all time.

TOP 25 ALL-TIME MINNESOTA TWINS RANKS:
 
OBP            .373         7th
OPS            .836         8th
Home Runs       101        11th
SLG            .463        11th
Walks           385        11th
RBIs            437        12th
Doubles         180        14th
XBH             294        14th
Total Bases    1290        16th
Runs            438        17th
Hits            781        18th
Steals           66        18th
AVG            .280        19th

For a complete list of other write-ups in the ongoing "Top 40 Minnesota Twins" series, click here.