St. Paul – This season is far from what anybody expected out of José Miranda and hasn’t been up to his standards.
The Minnesota Twins had him on a short leash in April after he made the Opening Day roster. In just 12 games, Miranda went 6-for-36 with one home run, five RBI, and a .417 OPS. However, the catalyst for his demotion back to Triple-A was a base-running blunder you never expect to see from a veteran player.
In a game against the Detroit Tigers on April 12, Miranda ran out a double-play grounder from first to second, getting called safe on his slide into second base when Colt Keith failed to step on the bag. Miranda didn’t realize he was called safe and walked away from second base. By the time he did, he was tagged out before he could move.
The Twins sent Miranda down immediately following that 4-0 loss, and he hasn’t been back in the majors since. He didn’t position himself for a call-up back to the majors following Minnesota’s fire sale at the trade deadline. At that point, he had a .203/.273/.312 slash line, five home runs, and 21 RBI over 253 plate appearances.
Miranda will be the first to tell you he hasn’t felt right all season. Not due to injury, but because his swing has felt completely off from how it was a year ago.
“I felt like it was a challenge throughout the whole year,” Miranda said about his swing. “A mix of not feeling comfortable with my setup, my stance, my move at times, that’s kind of been the biggest battle. I feel like that started since I got to spring. So it’s been just a battle of not hitting the ball the way I want to.”
The constant discomfort provides an answer to why Miranda’s numbers are down considerably from last season at both levels. Compared to a .284/.322/.441 slash line in 429 plate appearances last season, he owns a .192/.270/.300 slash line in 352 plate appearances at Triple-A this year.
Miranda said the decline in performance isn’t related to the left-hand sprain he suffered in April, immediately after his demotion. Instead, Miranda, Saints hitting coaches Shawn Schelceter, and Danny Marcuzzo are working together each week to see what sort of in-season changes they can make to his swing.
Making multiple attempts to change a player’s swing in the middle of the season is challenging. Miranda has done everything from opening up his stance more to closing it and moving the location of his hands before his swing. Changing things so frequently can also affect the mental side of the game when they don’t result in increased production.
“At times, I feel like it can be mental thinking, ‘Ah, this doesn’t feel great, this doesn’t feel good,’” said Miranda. “But it’s part of it. If you don’t feel comfortable when you’re going to the plate, it’s hard. Because obviously, you’re facing another guy on the mound trying to do his thing, and if something doesn’t feel right, it’s hard.”
“I think he’s trying to navigate that mentally this year because he really hasn’t had that struggle at this level before,” said Schlechter. “He’s just been a little bit off the barrel too much. But again, he shows up, he works hard, he wants to get back up there and impact his own career, [regardless of the] team he is with. He’s finishing strong here.”
Miranda’s hard work has still not yielded the results he’s been hoping for. He hasn’t been able to string together consecutive multi-hit games since June 19 and 20. That has led him back to the drawing board, trying something new with his swing almost every series.
“There are some times when you get frustrated, you get mad, you get pissed because you’re not seeing the results that you want to and that you’re kind of used to,” he said. “So just trying to stay positive and keep grinding no matter what happens or if I go 0-for-20, 0-for-50, I’ve just got to come the next day, put in the work, keep putting in the work, and trust the game. And trust that good things are going to come.”
Miranda isn’t the only MLB veteran infielder on the Saints roster who’s seen a significant drop in results from a solid year last season. Fellow corner infielder Jonah Bride hit 22 home runs between Triple-A and the majors last year in the Miami Marlins organization. After the Twins outrighted to the Saints on July 2, Bride quickly gravitated to spending time around Miranda, bonding over their separate struggles.
“For both of us in the minor leagues, and then we both had stronger seasons in the big leagues last year,” said Bride. “So it’s weird we’ve struggled so much this year, but just trying to see the positives out of that, it’s like what everyone’s going to go through. Whether it’s life, now it’s baseball. We’re going to have a year, and I think you can only get stronger and better from that going forward.”
“We’ve kind of been through the same path, kind of like in the big league level, and having to be down here, it’s always hard,” Miranda said. “Anytime you come down from the big leagues to Triple-A is different, and it’s hard. Having him here, talking, chatting every day and seeing what works for him, what works for me is always good.”
With only eight games left on the Saints’ schedule, Miranda knows it will take an offseason’s worth of work to get his batting stance and swing back into a form that brought him the results he had from 2021 to 2024. Like most players, he’ll take a couple of weeks off at most to reflect on what this season was, but he’ll want to get to work as soon as possible to set himself up for a much better 2026.
“I’m obviously going to grind in the off-season and work as hard as anyone to get better and to show who I am,” he said. “For me, this isn’t the player I am. We’ve had a couple of bad months, and for me, it’s just a bad stretch. That’s how I see it. I don’t see it as this is the player I am. I know the player I am, and kind of just get something and try to build with that into the off-season.”