The Defense Rests

Since yesterday's game wasn't televised and took place during the workday, my guess is that most fans didn't get a chance to see the action and ended up piecing together information about the 6-5 victory through the box score. A cursory look at the stat sheet indicates that Scott Baker once again hit a wall after pitching several strong innings; this time, Baker held the Tigers scoreless while facing the minimum over the first five innings before getting tagged for five runs in the sixth. Yet, a deeper glance at what actually took place gives us another lesson in the importance of defense.

With two outs in the sixth inning, Baker was facing Ramon Santiago with two runners on. Santiago hit a seemingly catchable line drive toward left field; Jason Kubel gave chase but watched the ball bounce over the wall for an RBI ground-rule double. The Tigers proceeded to rally for four more runs in the inning, and Baker's once-promising outing ended after six innings. The Twins' ostensible No. 1 starter failed to put a dent in his inflated ERA.

Had Carlos Gomez been starting in center, Denard Span would have been in left and would have almost certainly caught Santiago's line drive. The inning would have been over, the game still would have been tied 0-0, and Baker would have still been pitching in the seventh, keeping pressure off a beleaguered bullpen.

While Baker certainly deserves his fair share of blame for surrendering a deep ball to the gap off the bat of Santiago, the fact of the matter is that he -- like many other members of this pitching staff -- is a fly ball pitcher. Pitchers like Baker, Kevin Slowey and Glen Perkins are routinely going to give up a number of fly balls and line drives into the outfield gaps, even when they're going good. Having a pair of fantastic defensive outfielders like Gomez and Span to play behind pitchers like these is a blessing, but one that the Twins continually waste by benching Gomez and playing Span in center field, where he is not nearly as valuable.

That the Twins were able to come back and win yesterday thanks to a second straight impressive effort from what is proving to be an extremely resurgent offense does not change the fact that substandard fielding cost the Twins five runs and nearly a ballgame. When Aaron Gleeman suggested earlier this week that the outfield alignment of Span and Gomez would save as many as 80 runs over the Young/Span duo according to Ultimate Zone Rating, many scoffed at the sheer ridiculousness of the figure. And maybe it is an exaggeration. Yet, seeing an extra five runs score in one game because of an avoidable misplay in the outfield makes the number seem a little less absurd. Take into account the extra strain that the non-catch put on Baker, the bullpen and the team at large, and you'll have some idea as to why I feel so adamant about the importance of fielding a strong defensive alignment in the outfield.

I realize I'm probably beating a dead horse here, but to me, Gardenhire's handling of the outfield situation is the preeminent issue with this club right now. Between that (assuming it Gardy's decision, and not Bill Smith's), his unwillingness to play Brendan Harris on a regular basis and his stringent adherence to using Joe Nathan only in the ninth inning, Gardenhire is doing an awful lot to hurt this team right now. The Twins finally lifted themselves above the .500 mark with yesterday's win, but they can't count on miracle comebacks forever. Unless Gardenhire starts making some smarter choices, this team will have an extremely tough time maintaining their spot atop the AL Central.

Saving Guerrier's Arm

In 2007, Matt Guerrier posted a 2.88 ERA and 0.87 WHIP in the first half. After the All Star break, those numbers inflated to 3.88 and 1.27. The second-half decline may have had something to do with the fact that Guerrier set a career high with 73 appearances, a figure that ranked him seventh in the American League.

In 2008, Matt Guerrier posted a 3.35 ERA and 1.33 WHIP in the first half. After the All Star break, those numbers inflated to 8.88 and 2.09. The ugly second-half numbers included a September and October in which Guerrier went 0-5 with a 10.07 ERA as the Twins chased the White Sox for the AL Central lead. The late collapse may have had something to do with the fact that Guerrier set a new career high with 76 appearances, a figure that tied him for the league lead.

This year, Guerrier has looked sharp for the most part. He pitched an excellent inning to protect a relatively small lead against the Tigers on Tuesday night, and entered last night's game having allowed just 12 hits and three walks over 18 innings. Ron Gardenhire called on Guerrier for the third time in four days last night, and the results were brutal. The reliever coughed up a pair of home runs while recording just one out, and turned a lead into a deficit for the Twins. The appearance in last night's game puts Guerrier on pace to set a new career high with 81.

The evidence seems to pretty clearly indicate that Guerrier's struggles over the past couple years have been the result of overuse. And as much as I'd like to point an accusatory finger at Gardenhire, it's difficult to blame him in this instance. The unfortunate fact is that the ineffectiveness of the rest of the bullpen often leaves Gardenhire with no choice but to trot his top relievers out far more often than he'd like.

Tuesday night's game presents a great example of what I'm talking about. In that game, Gardenhire never should have needed to use Guerrier. Jesse Crain started the seventh and the plan was for him to complete one inning and hand the ball to Jose Mijares and Joe Nathan, who would take care of the eighth and ninth. Unfortunately, Crain couldn't get the job done, as he cut the Twins' lead down to three by surrendering a leadoff homer and then issued a walk before being pulled in favor of Mijares. That Gardenhire was forced to go to Mijares early left the eighth inning open and, with the game still relatively close, Gardy had little choice but to go to Guerrier. It was this type of situation that caused several relievers to get overworked last year. Crain, and others (LUIS AYALA), must step up and get outs.

Of course, if Gardenhire is looking for another right-handed reliever to take pressure off Guerrier and Crain, there's that Joe Nathan guy who has only accumulated 13 innings of work through the team's first 34 games...

Patience Paving the Way

One of the many topics that John Bonnes and Seth Stohs broached on Sunday night's edition of the always-entertaining MN Gamenight podcast was the increased patience that the Twins lineup has shown this season. The discussion came in the wake of a weekend series against the Mariners in which Twins hitters drew 21 walks in three games. Hearing this talked about piqued my interest, as I too have noticed an increase in quality at-bats from Twins hitters in this young season. Let's dig into the topic...

Coming out of the weekend, the Twins rank seventh out of 14 American League teams with 109 walks -- about exactly average*. That might not seem like everything special, but given that the Twins perennially rank anywhere between below-average and terrible in walks taken, it's noteworthy. That ranking also understates the team's patience to some degree since Joe Mauer has only been playing for about a week.

* Posnanski-style side note: the team directly in front of the Twins in walks? The Royals, with 116. Who would've thought??

It is a well-known fact that the Twins organization has not generally been known for preaching a patient approach to its hitters; one of the most annoying contradictions in the Twins' philosophy has been the way they emphasize avoiding walks to their pitchers while seemingly dismissing the value of hitters taking walks. Yet, one gets the sense that we might be seeing some changes in this deep-seeded philosophy.

The Twins current lineup features a number of patient hitters. Mauer is of course one of the league's best in this regard; he's got a 4-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in this young season. Denard Span (14/13 K/BB) has also quickly developed a reputation as being an extremely disciplined hitter, while Justin Morneau (19/13) and Michael Cuddyer (22/15) are power guys who will draw walks at a pretty steady pace as well. Nick Punto and Matt Tolbert haven't hit much thus far, but both bring a professional approach to the plate, work the count, and keep their strikeout-to-walk ratios pretty close to even. Brian Buscher and Mike Redmond have both walked almost as much as they've struck out, and guys like Brendan Harris and Jason Kubel -- who don't walk a ton -- have shown a propensity to take some pitches and work deep into counts. Aside from Carlos Gomez and Delmon Young, who remain the very definitions of free swingers (and who also both came over from other organizations in the recent past), this lineup generally features a good deal of plate discipline. Are we seeing a shift?

Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the Twins brought up a group of talented, home-raised young players who mostly lacked patience at the plate. Players such as Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones, Luis Rivas, A.J. Pierzynski and Cristian Guzman (not homegrown) enjoyed varying levels of offensive success in the majors, but none of them would be mistaken for a particularly patient hitter. The new generation of homegrown talent seems much different in this regard, and a quick glance at the organization's current farm system suggests that we're seeing a trend rather than a mirage.

Running down my Top Ten Twins Prospects list, we find a number of players whose offensive strengths include plate discipline. Ben Revere, who hit for a huge average but didn't walk much last year, has drawn 12 walks while striking out only seven times through his first 29 games, leading to a .377 on-base percentage. Danny Valencia, who struck out more than three times for every walk after moving up to New Britain for the second half of last season, has shown tremendously improved discipline with the Rock Cats this year, having drawn 14 walks while striking out 17 times in 21 games. Aaron Hicks is in extended spring training right now, but last year he broke onto the scene in rookie ball with an impressive 32-to-28 K/BB ratio and .409 OBP in 45 games. Chris Parmelee, a 2006 first-round pick who didn't break into my Top Ten but is perhaps the organization's best pure power-hitting prospect, has been a walk machine over the course of his career. Sure, you've still got the raw, undisciplined hackers like Wilson Ramos and Angel Morales dotting the organization's list of upper-echelon prospects, but in general one gets the sense that the Twins are seeking more disciplined hitters and putting more of an organizational emphasis on teaching patience. That's a very good sign.

One could argue that some members of the sabermetric community overrate the value of the walk, and I might be inclined to agree. But there's no denying that having hitters in your lineup who can work counts, fluster pitchers and put themselves on base even when their line drives aren't falling in has wide-ranging benefits. The Twins, as you'll see below, have been getting better in this department every year since 2005:

Twins Team Walks
2005: 485
2006: 490
2007: 512
2008: 529

And this year, they're currently on pace to walk 551 times (a conservative projection given that the effect of Mauer -- who walked 83 times last season -- is understated in the current sample). No Twins team has walked more than 550 times since 2000. This is progress, and I think there's plenty of evidence to suggest it's no coincidence, and not going away any time soon.

Word From Up Top?

Having watched Ron Gardenhire manage this team for the past seven years, we've grown pretty familiar with his tendencies and preferences. We know his tactics, we know how he likes to fill out a lineup, we know how he likes to utilize his bullpen. We also definitely know that there is a particular type of player that Gardenhire especially likes, and that he is generally much more likely to have a longer leash with players who fall into this mold.

Gardenhire, much like the Twins as an organization, values good defensive players. He likes guys that play hard and hustle. If he likes a player, you'll frequently hear him refer to that player as "scrappy," or you'll see him talk about how the player "battles his tail off." Gardenhire also likes players who have a positive influence in the clubhouse. Offensive production often takes a back seat to these factors in the mind of the Twins' manager, which is why Nick Punto remained a regular player for the entirety of his disastrous 2007 season. It's also why Matt Tolbert has immediately seized the starting second base job and second spot in the lineup while Brendan Harris still must fight for playing time. I've always figured that Gardy's affinity for this type of player is based on the fact that he himself was a light-hitting hustle guy when he played in the big leagues.

Given Gardenhire's historical tendencies, I'm having a very difficult time understanding why he has seemingly elected to make Delmon Young his starting left fielder while relegating Carlos Gomez to a bench role as a fourth outfielder and late-game defensive replacement. Obviously I think Gomez should be the team's starting center fielder, and I don't suspect that Gardenhire would agree for the same reasons. I doubt he's aware that Wins Above Replacement (a statistic which incorporates both offense and defense) shows Gomez as an above-average player up to this point, with his advantage over Young being roughly equivalent to Justin Morneau's advantage over Michael Cuddyer. I also doubt that Gardenhire knows -- or cares -- that there are articles out there concluding that Denard Span is worth 37 runs over Young in left field. But being that Gomez plays fantastic defense, hustles all over the field, maintains an enthusiastic clubhouse demeanor and is built to do all the little things (bunting, stealing, etc.), it baffles me that Gardenhire is choosing to bench Gomez in favor of Young, who doesn't seem to embody any of those qualities. There's one theory I keep coming back to: he's not.

During the offseason, it was widely reported that the Twins were aggressively shopping Young. Several reporters who covered the winter meetings got the sense that the chances of Young being on the Twins' Opening Day roster this season were outweighed by the chances he wouldn't be. Of course, he didn't end up being moved, and the reason for that could very well be that no other general managers were offering much for the former top prospect, who was coming off his second straight disappointing major-league season.

So, perhaps the Twins are still interested in moving Young. And perhaps the knowledge that Young has no chance of ramping up his trade value while sitting on the bench has motivated Bill Smith and the front office to influence Gardenhire's decision-making process. If regular playing time could put Young on some sort of hot streak, it might pique the interest of teams searching for a right-handed bat.

There are plenty of smart people who disagree with my opinion that Gomez should be ahead of Young on the outfield depth chart, and there have been a number of reasonable points used in support of that particular view. But none of these reasons seem like the type that would be used by the Gardenhire that I've come to know. I've got to believe there's more going on here than meets the eye.

Demote Gomez?

Now that Alexi Casilla has been sent to the minors, there have been many calls amongst Twins fans for a follow-up move: a demotion for Carlos Gomez. Howard Sinker went on the record for this cause back in mid-April, and now it seems that everywhere I look -- be it Twins Geek, Seth Speaks, Bleacher Bums, or any number of message boards and comments sections -- fans are clamoring for Gomez to be shipped to Rochester.

I disagreed with Howard a few weeks ago and I still disagree with this sentiment now -- perhaps even more so.

Gomez could probably benefit from some time in Triple-A, I get that. But given that the Twins haven't exactly been playing stellar baseball lately, their main concern at this point ought to be putting the best possible team on the field. Since sending Gomez down would mean regular playing time for Delmon Young, the question becomes which player makes the team better. I think it's almost impossible to argue that point in Young's favor right now.

Clearly, Gomez is a far more valuable defensive player. I've discussed that fact ad nauseum and I don't think there's much debate about it. Certainly, opinions differ as to how much more valuable he is in the field, but there's no denying that the Twins' defense is better with Gomez in center and Denard Span in left than with Span in center and Young in left. Personally, I think that the latter configuration is significantly worse and far more straining on the pitching staff. Others don't believe the gap is that large, or that important.

So, with Gomez clearly bringing more value defensively and on the basepaths, Young needs to be outhitting him in order to justify his spot in the lineup. Is he? Not really -- not by a substantial margin anyway.

Prior to last night's game, Young's OPS was a whopping 10 points higher than that of Gomez. That margin increased a bit with Young's three-hit game last night, but of course all three hits were singles. Young has only two extra-base hits this season (Gomez has five); combine that with a lack of patience and his batting average is about as empty as they get. In spite of his solid .288 average, Young's OPS stands at 671 after last night's game -- bad for anyone, but terrible for a poor-fielding corner outfielder.

One might point to recent trends as the reason Young deserves playing time over Gomez. After all, they might note, Young has eight hits in his last 20 at-bats. But that angle doesn't work, because Gomez has nine hits in his last 20 at-bats. And while all of Young's eight hits were singles, Gomez has mixed three doubles in. AND while Young has posted a 7-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio during that span, Gomez struck out only four times while walking twice.

I don't doubt that some time in Rochester might do Gomez a bit of good, but the Twins have now lost five of their past six games and they need to be focused on putting the players on the field who will help them win. I'm not seeing anything to convince me that Young is helping the team more than Gomez right now. Apparently Ron Gardenhire is, because Gomez has started only three of the Twins' last 13 games. While he was away from the team for a couple days to be with his wife, who was giving birth to their first child, that remains a ridiculous rate of play for the still-developing 23-year-old.

If Gardy is going to relegate Gomez to the bench, then he should be sent down to the minors so he can play regularly. But the plain and simple fact is that Gomez should be starting, and Young should be the fourth outfielder.

Down Goes Casilla

I've gotten the sense that people have grown tired of me writing so much about Alexi Casilla's struggles lately. Good news: you won't have to anymore, at least not for a while. That's because the Twins yesterday demoted Casilla to Triple-A Rochester and recalled Matt Tolbert to take his place on the roster. Thus, one of my preseason predictions comes true far earlier than even I expected.

It's the right move. Casilla has been absolutely disastrous at the plate this year, and recently his play in the field has taken a turn for the worse. He has been taking terrible at-bats, failing to run out ground balls and making inexcusable mental mistakes while on defense. And while keeping him in the second spot in the batting order regularly was ostensibly supposed to boost his confidence and get him back on track, his play has only deteriorated and his confidence seemed to be sloping downward. Quite simply, there is no way to justify keeping him as a regular in the lineup at this point, especially in the two-hole.

This might come as a shock to some, but I actually like Casilla. I don't think he's a very good ballplayer at this point, but he strikes me as a friendly, happy and easy-going guy. When I followed the team to Kansas City for a road trip back in 2007, I saw Casilla along with a couple other players strolling through the downtown strip at night after completing a day game. While the rest of the players in the group, which included Carlos Silva and Luis Castillo, seemed grumpy and unapproachable, Casilla had a big smile on his face and stepped with a giddy stride as he made his way through the crowded storefront. I truly want him to succeed and hope he can straighten things out in Rochester, but that doesn't change the fact that he was doing nothing to help the Twins at this point.

The logical choice to replace Casilla as regular second baseman is Brendan Harris, who has swung the bat very well this season and would give the lineup a much-needed jolt against left-handed pitching. However, Ron Gardenhire seems to have some sort of vendetta against Harris. In spite of Harris' outstanding showing in spring training, the manager reportedly didn't want to bring the infielder north, and Harris has received only meager playing time up to this point even though he's batted .308 while Casilla has struggled. I realize that there are questions about Harris' defense and his ability to turn a double play at second base, but I believe these are overstated. The most reliable defensive metrics show that Harris' range at second has been only slightly below average over the past couple seasons, and the fact that he's a bit slow on turning the twin killing is not nearly the big deal that some make it out to be.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't be surprised to see Tolbert get a solid chunk of playing time at second base in Casilla's absence. Tolbert has hit just .260/.324/.375 in Triple-A thus far, but his bat has heated up lately (.356 average over his last 10 games), which likely earned him the call-up. In the long run, he's likely to be a replacement level bat at the major-league level, but given his solid defensive capabilities he'd probably be serviceable as a short-term option at second base. Still, I think the Twins would be better served using him as a utility man -- moving him around the infield and getting him into the lineup two or three times per week. If Gardenhire's distaste for Harris wins out and Tolbert does take over as the regular second baseman, he certainly shouldn't be hitting second in the lineup, as he did in last night's rain-shortened game. It will be interesting to see how Gardy handles that situation.

The Twins came into this season counting on Casilla to be a key part of their lineup. Now, just one month into the season, he's out of the lineup and off the major-league roster. I think it was a mistake not to have any sort of real backup plan in place considering Casilla's erratic history as a player, but alas, the Twins will have to fall back on Harris and Tolbert and hope that one of the two can step up and provide a meaningful improvement at second base.

Tuesday Notes

Lately it seems I've been spending all my time breaking down prospect performances, marveling at Joe Mauer's greatness and complaining about Alexi Casilla, so today I'll get caught up on a wide range of Twins-related topics with a bunch of notes...

* For those who wonder why I put so much value into Carlos Gomez's center field defense, Sunday's game provides a good example.

In the seventh inning, with the Twins leading 5-3, Luis Ayala came in to relieve Scott Baker with two on and nobody out. Ayala promptly surrendered a line drive to deep left center field, and the ball sailed past the outstretched glove of a diving Denard Span. Two runs scored, tying the game. In the next inning, Jose Guillen hit a liner to deep center; Span again chased the ball but had it bounce of his glove and off the wall for an RBI double. Now, this is just my opinion, but I believe that both of these balls would have been caught were Gomez in center field. That's not a dig against Span, who made a hell of an effort on both plays, but Gomez's range is unparalleled among players on this team and I've seen him run down balls hit to those areas on numerous occasions.

So, that's three runs that may have been prevented from scoring if Gomez were in the game, and perhaps the difference between a win and a loss. Now, given that neither of these plays occurred with two outs in the inning, it's entirely possible that all those runs would have scored anyway. All of these hypotheticals and probabilities are part of what makes defense so difficult to measure and value.

* Of course, we wouldn't be talking about who could hypothetically catch these monstrous 400-foot line drives if Ayala and R.A. Dickey weren't allowing them in the first place. The Twins bullpen has been rather disastrous so far, and these two are clearly looking like the weakest links. It's early yet, but Ayala has thus far proven to be a horrible signing and there's not much reason to hope he'll improve a whole lot. In spite of his misguided "sinkerballer" label, Ayala has induced ground balls at a mediocre 41.9 percent rate while opponents have slugged .556 against him.

Dickey, meanwhile, has remarkably allowed 10 of 12 inherited runners to score while posting a 2.19 WHIP and 10-to-10 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 13 2/3 innings. His vaunted rubber arm hasn't even been particularly useful, as he's appeared just four times in the Twins past 14 games and totaled just five innings during that span. It's awfully tough to see what value Dickey has for this team, which is why I was somewhat frustrated when the Twins demoted and risked losing Philip Humber to waivers a couple weeks ago in order to preserve Dickey's spot on the big-league roster.

* Gomez was held out of the Twins' starting lineup for the sixth time in the past seven games last night, while Alexi Casilla once again started and batted second. Baffling.

Gomez has gotten off to a rough start offensively this year, but Casilla's been considerably worse. It's inexplicable that Ron Gardenhire is showing so much confidence in one while burying the other. It can't be that Casilla is doing "the little things," as he cost the Twins a game on Saturday night with a careless error in the field, and last night hit into an infuriurating double play because he failed to run to first base on a popped-up bunt attempt.

Casilla was only moderately more productive at the plate than Gomez last season, and Gomez brings much more defensive value when he's in the lineup. There's no reason Casilla should getting such preferential treatment.

* While Baker worked through six innings of hitless ball to start Sunday afternoon's game, I observed multiple fans complaining about Dick Bremer repeatedly making mention of the no-hit bid on the television broadcast. I find it somewhat amusing that rational, adult baseball fans -- even the statistically oriented ones who I'd hardly describe as traditionalists -- can get so worked up over a silly superstition.

I can buy into the idea that some superstitions may yield actual benefits. If a player wears the same "lucky socks" for every night game, perhaps on some deep mental level it gives them an extra measure of comfort or confidence while they're playing. But the notion that a pitcher's bid for a no-hitter can be sabotaged by a random announcer in the press box or a random fan in the stands mentioning the fact that he hasn't allowed a hit yet is downright ridiculous. Bremer is a commentator and his job is to talk about what's happening in the game, not ignore the biggest storyline in observance of an arbitrary superstition.

* Seth Stohs has been on a roll lately when it comes to recruiting podcast guests. Last Thursday, he had Glen Perkins sit in as co-host for the MN Gamenight show. Last night, for his own SethSpeaks.net weekly podcast, Seth was able to recruit Pat Neshek, Democrat and Chronicle scribe Jim Mandelaro (an authority on the Twins' Triple-A affiliate), and -- most impressively -- me.

OK, obviously I'm the least impressive name on that outstanding list of guests, but both shows are definitely worth listening to for Seth and the other guys. Check them out.

Prospect Rundown: April

With one month in the books, let's take a look at how each member of my preseason Twins' Top Ten Prospects list has fared thus far...

10. Steve Tolleson (AA): .164/.243/.224, 0 HR, 2 RBI, 2 R, 2/3 SB

It was a little surprising to see Tolleson start at New Britain again after hitting .300/.382/.466 in 93 games there last year, but it seems the organization wanted to see if his performance was a fluke and thus far he's provided little reason to think it wasn't. Tolleson has shown essentially no power thus far and has struggled to make solid contact. A disappointing start.

9. Angel Morales (A): .169/.200/.338, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 8 R, 1/2 SB

Morales continues to be extremely strikeout-prone, fanning 24 times in 71 at-bats, and he managed to work only two walks over the first month of the season. That's a K/BB ratio that would make Carlos Gomez blush. Morales struck out a lot last year, too, but made up for it by hitting for average and big power. So far, he's been unable to do that this season.

8. Shooter Hunt (A): 14.2 IP, 0-1, 10.43 ERA, 14/29 K/BB, 2.66 WHIP

Well, so far we're 3-for-3 on slow starts from this list. Hunt's control took a turn for the worse when he moved from rookie ball to Beloit near the end of last season, and this year it's been disastrous. He just cannot find the strike zone, and until he does he won't be a factor.

7. Anthony Slama (AA): 11.2 IP, 3 SV, 2.31 ERA, 20/8 K/BB, 1.46 WHIP

I don't really like talking about Slama because it gets me all riled up. He should have been in New Britain for the second half of last season and should be in Rochester right now, ready to help a beleaguered big-league bullpen.

6. Kevin Mulvey (AAA): 19.1 IP, 0-1, 3.26 ERA, 20/8 K/BB, 1.38 WHIP

Mulvey's strong strikeout rate is encouraging, particularly considering that he's missed more bats as he's moved up through the minors, and he's getting lots of ground balls. Should anyone in the Twins' rotation go down, Mulvey is making a great case to be the top replacement option.

5. Danny Valencia (AA): .275/.389/.500, 3 HR, 9 RBI, 16 R, 0/1 SB
There was some thought that Valencia might start the season in Rochester after he finished well in New Britain last year, but the Twins opted to start the third baseman at Double-A again. That's fine, considering that Valencia had struggled with his plate discipline despite solid overall numbers during his time in New Britain, but I think his 18-to-14 strikeout-to-walk ratio thus far proves that he's gotten a handle on the strike zone at this level. He should be moved up Rochester sooner rather than later.

4. Jose Mijares (MLB): 4.2 IP, 0.00 ERA, 8/1 K/BB, 0.64 WHIP

After a rough spring, Mijares opened the year in Rochester but it wasn't long before he was back up with the big-league club. He's pitched well thus far and is already establishing himself as the team's top eighth-inning option. Of course, a sample of 4 2/3 innings isn't much to go by.

3. Ben Revere (A+): .283/.371/.337, 1 HR, 14 RBI, 15 R, 12/17 SB
My greatest concern with Revere was that he'd be unable to sustain his high level of production when his batting average inevitably dropped from the high .300s; thus far he has quelled those fears to a degree. Revere has displayed tremendous plate discipline, drawing 12 walks while striking out only seven times, and he's got an excellent on-base percentage after one month. It'd be nice if he were producing more extra-base hits, but he offsets that to some degree by moving himself around the bases on steals. All in all, a strong start for Revere, who turned 21 yesterday.

2. Wilson Ramos (AA): .275/.298/.363, 1 HR, 8 RBI, 10 R, 0/0 SB

Ramos had a very impressive spring with the big-league club, so he's a player who many will be following closely this season. Unfortunately, he hasn't gotten his season off to a real good start. There have been reports that Ramos is unable to hit breaking balls, and it could be that this issue is starting to weigh on him now that he's reached the higher levels. Still, he hasn't struck out at a particularly high rate (just 13 times in 80 AB), so hopefully with time he'll start connecting better. He's young enough that there's no real reason to worry even if the hitting drought continues for a while.

1. Aaron Hicks (Extended Spring Training)
Rather than assign Hicks to one of their minor-league teams, the Twins opted to start Hicks in extended spring training to work on his game and receive intensive instruction. It's tough to argue with this strategy, since it's what the Twins did with Revere last year prior to his monster season in Beloit, but it is nevertheless frustrating from a fan standpoint because it gives us no competitive statistics to digest.

CONCLUSIONS:
There are some worrisome early starts to be found here, but for the most part the most highly rated prospects are all getting the job done. It's very encouraging to see Revere drawing walks, Mijares finding the strike zone and Valencia cutting down on his strikeouts. We'll check in on all these guys once again at the end of May.

Mauer Day

Baby Jesus.

Chairman Mauer.

Joey Da Gun.

Whatever you want to call him, it's going to be great to see Joe Mauer back in the Twins lineup tonight. The 2008 All-Star missed all of spring training and the first several weeks of the season due to an inflamed joint in his lower back, but after going 6-for-15 in a rehab stint at Ft. Myers, he's ready to return to action and will be the starting catcher when the Twins open their series against the Royals at the Metrodome this evening.

Since Mauer made the jump to the majors in 2004, the Twins have been a significantly better team when he's been in the lineup. In games where Mauer has started during that span, the Twins have gone 293-241 -- 53 more wins than losses and good for a .549 winning percentage. In games Mauer has not started, the Twins have gone 156-143 -- 13 more wins than losses and good for a .522 winning percentage. With that being the case, perhaps we can be a little less concerned about the team's 11-11 record over the first month with Mauer out of the lineup, and a little more optimistic about what they'll be able to do now that he's back (particularly considering that a number of slumping players are due for an upswing in production).

So, just how does Mauer's return figure to positively impact the Twins? Let us count the ways...

Offensive Production
The Twins have gotten a solid .301/.363/.356 hitting line from the catcher position over the first month of the season thanks to the surprising productivity of Jose Morales, but once Morales' .405 batting average on balls in play takes an inevitable dip, the average from the catching position will drop and the OPS will come crashing down with it due to a lack of patience or power from either Morales or Mike Redmond.

Even if the current catching duo were somehow able to maintain their current rate of production, it would still pale in comparison to Mauer's .317/.399/.457 career hitting line and to his .328/.413/.451 line from a year ago.

Patience
Building on the last point, Mauer brings a discerning eye to a lineup sorely lacks them. The Twins currently rank 11th in the American League in walks with 68. Mauer, of course, is one of baseball's most disciplined hitters, having ranked seventh in the American League in walks last year while finishing with an incredible 50-to-84 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Defense
In 135 games at catcher last year, Mauer committed three errors and was charged with four passed balls. In 22 games so far this year, Morales and Redmond have combined for two errors and five passed balls. Of course, the mishandled balls behind the plate haven't been nearly as frustrating as the current duo's deficiency in the next department...

Controlling the Running Game
Mauer has one of the best throwing arms among major-league catchers, having thwarted steal attempts 41 percent of the time over the course of his career (36 percent last year and 53 percent in 2007). This year, Redmond has gone 1-for-10 throwing out baserunners while Morales has gone 6-for-19, and so the two have combined for a CS% of 24.1. That's not very good, but it's a lot worse when you consider that plays in which the pitcher picks off a runner count toward these totals. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge the Redmond/Morales duo has only actually been responsible for throwing out a stealing baserunner on one occasion this season (Mark DeRosa last weekend in Cleveland).

In 22 games, opposing teams have successfully moved a runner up one base on a steal 22 times. That generally means a player moves from first base into scoring position without any negative consequence, and it puts a lot of strain on the pitching staff. Opposing teams have shown no restraint when it comes to running on the current regime, as their 29 attempted steals in 22 games would put them on pace for 214 attempts over a 162 game season, with a very high success rate. Last year, opposing teams attempted 80 steals in 135 games against Mauer, which would equate to 96 steal attempts in a full season (with anywhere between one-third to one-half of those being unsuccessful).

Game Calling
The Twins pitching staff finished the 2008 season with a 4.18 ERA with Mauer working as the regular catcher. This year, the staff has finished the month of April with a 5.26 ERA while being caught by Redmond and Morales. Now, clearly it would be silly to attribute all of the team's pitching troubles to the catchers -- the struggles of guys like Scott Baker and Francisco Liriano have been their own doing for the most part -- but almost every single pitcher on this team has a lengthy history of working with Mauer. They're comfortable with him and he knows their individual styles. Mauer has a reputation around the league as being a quality game-caller, which is part of the reason he was awarded with his first Gold Glove last year.

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The first of May is widely known as May Day, but Twins fans will refer to this high holiday by another name: Mauer Day. Time to celebrate.

That'll Work, For Now

After sputtering offensively on Monday and failing in numerous scoring opportunities on Tuesday, the Twins' lineup needed to have a big game in their finale against the Rays last night. And while they weren't able to do so in the most convincing fashion, they made it happen in an 8-3 victory that sealed a second straight series win and returned them to the .500 mark.

Many of the Twins' runs last night came across on either wild pitches or defensive miscues by the Rays, but a run is a run and in the end the Twins managed to rack up eight on 12 hits. Is it a coincidence that the offensive explosion came on the same night where Alexi Casilla was finally moved out of the the No. 2 spot in the order? Probably, for the most part, but that doesn't mean that sliding Casilla down was the wrong idea.

Casilla went 0-for-4 from the No. 9 spot to lower his hitting line for the season to .174/.230/.217. I didn't have high hopes for Casilla this season (see my third prediction on this page), and drew some criticism for projecting him to post a meager .270/.320/.345 line earlier this spring, but it's now looking like even that might have been too optimistic. I'm sure he'll eventually raise his numbers from where they're at now, but there's little reason to believe at this point that Casilla is going to hit enough to be a viable regular.

On his blog Over the Baggy, Parker Hageman pointed out yesterday that Casilla has the lowest OPS of any qualifying American League hitter, and the third lowest of any player in baseball. Hageman also notes that Casilla's rate of chasing pitches out of the zone and hitting the ball on the ground are both tops among qualifying major-league second baseman, and a staggering 42.9 percent of Casilla's fly balls have failed to leave the infield (also an MLB-leading figure). He's been simply atrocious at the plate up to this point, and there is little reason to believe he's going to rebound in any meaningful way. With the exception of a two-and-a-half-month hot streak last year that is looking more and more like a fluke, Casilla has been anywhere between below-average and terrible offensively everywhere he's been over the past two seasons. He doesn't appear to have a sustainable strategy for success at the plate, and there's no earthly reason he should be hitting near the top of the lineup at this juncture.

Unfortunately, Ron Gardenhire doesn't seem to see things the same way. According to Joe Christensen...

Manager Ron Gardenhire said he’s leaning toward putting Mauer right back in the No. 3 spot, when he returns. The hope is that Alexi Casilla will rediscover his form from last year in the No. 2 spot.

Having an offensive sinkhole like Casilla breaking up the team's top four hitters is a bad strategy and a potential rally-killer, yet this is another example of Gardenhire being far too slow to make lineup changes that are clearly necessary. Last year, it took the manager until late July to move Carlos Gomez out of the leadoff spot in spite of the fact that the center fielder's on-base percentage was below .300 for most of the first half of the season; now Gardy appears content to keep writing Casilla into the lineup spot that receives the second-most opportunities to hit because evidently he thinks Joe Mauer will provide better protection than Justin Morneau. Or because he thinks that the player who came up and streaked through June and July last year is the real Alexi Casilla, contrary to all the evidence we've seen suggesting otherwise over the past two years. Either way, the thought process is flawed and the decision is wrong.

If Casilla is going to be in the lineup, he should be hitting toward the bottom. But the smarter choice at this point is to start feeding more and more starts to Brendan Harris, be it at second base or at shortstop with Nick Punto sliding over the second. Harris went 3-for-5 while replacing Casilla in the two-hole last night to raise his hitting line for the season to .350/.372/.475 -- yes, that slugging percentage is higher than Casilla's OPS.

Harris got off to a slow start last year, hitting .262/.315/.372 up until the All Star break, but that's excusable seeing as how he was adjusting to playing with a new club. In the second half, Harris posted a solid .272/.353/.434 line, and he proceeded to have an excellent spring training this year before getting his regular season off to a torrid start. Harris' bat is looking legitimate and with the horrendous production the Twins have been receiving from their other right-handed bats, he needs to be getting into the lineup on a more frequent basis. Harris represents a fairly significant defensive downgrade at any infield position, but that's a necessary sacrifice at this point and his harm in the field can be reduced by strategically using Casilla and others as late-game defensive replacements.

The Twins have been playing better ball as of late, but they need to get their lineup into a sustainable mode of production. Mauer's return will certainly help toward that end, but getting Casilla out of the No. 2 spot and feeding Harris more at-bats are other important steps. It seems as though the Twins would be in significantly better shape right now if they'd taken advantage of a tremendous bargain opportunity this offseason by signing Orlando Hudson, but hey, what do I know.

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By the by, if you get a chance please make sure to tune into the MN GameNight podcast tonight at 10 p.m., which Seth Stohs will be hosting alongside Glen Perkins.

Lady Luck

Justin Morneau lifted the Twins to a walk-off victory last night when he hit a scalding liner at Akinori Iwamura that the Rays couldn't convert into a double play with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, but it was a position that the Twins really never should have been in.

I say that not because it was unacceptable for Joe Nathan to surrender the game-tying home to Ben Zobrist in the top half of the ninth. Nathan's one of the best in the biz, but nobody's perfect and he's going to make the occasional mistake. The fact of the matter is that Nathan wouldn't have been protecting a one-run lead had the Twins not failed repeatedly in scoring opportunities for a second night in a row.

The Twins went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position in last night's game, with the only hit coming on an infield single by Denard Span during their ninth-inning rally. On Monday night, the Twins had gone 0-for-9 in scoring opportunities, and they entered last night's game hitting just .265/.344/.348 in such situations on the season. Whatever clutch magic this offense purportedly had last year certainly has not been present so far this season, and has definitely been absent in this series. It seems the Twins have ended their affair with Lady Luck and are now courting a cold-hearted mistress by the name of Regression to the Mean.

After Morneau ripped a two-run homer in the first inning, the only way the Twins could find to score in the game were getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and hitting into a fielder's choice. That's not a sustainable offensive strategy and the Twins aren't going to be winning many games if they can't start driving some runners in with legitimate hits. Unfortunately, tonight they'll be going against Scott Kazmir, who happens to be left-handed. And we all know how this team has performed against left-handers so far...

Lining Up With Mauer

There had been some rumblings that the Twins were considering activating Joe Mauer earlier than expected -- perhaps as soon as today -- but it now appears that they'll stick with the original plan and bring him back on Friday in time for a three-game weekend series against the Royals.

Along with a fair amount of well warranted excitement for fans, Mauer's return will bring with it a number of interesting decisions for the Twins brain trust. The first thing they'll need to decide is which player to remove from the 25-man roster in order to make space for Mauer to come off the disabled list. Jose Morales, who is hitting .361 after going 5-for-8 in his past two games, has become a popular choice to stick around as a third catcher upon Mauer's return. Yet, this wouldn't be the correct choice for Morales or for the team. With Mauer unlikely to spend much (if any) time at DH, there will probably only be about eight at-bats per week available at the catcher position -- splitting that between two players is pointless. Morales is a nice guy to have in the organization and looks to be the backup of the future, but he should be playing more regularly than he would be as a third catcher with the big-league club right now. Unless Mike Redmond is placed on the DL (which wouldn't seem to be such a bad idea considering how beat up he looks), Morales should and will be the odd man out upon Mauer's return.

The more interesting dilemma posed by Mauer's activation is how to work the catcher into the lineup. Alexi Casilla has been a mess in the No. 2 spot, leading one to speculate that Mauer might slip in there and knock Casilla to the bottom of the order. Doing so would make sense, since Mauer seems a good for for the two-hole and a 1-4 order of Denard Span, Mauer, Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel would put the Twins' four best hitters in position to receive the most at-bats.

The obvious flaw with this arrangement, however, is that it puts four consecutive lefties at the top of the Twins' lineup. Even when the Twins are facing a right-handed starter, this is a bad idea, because it makes the Twins extremely vulnerable to left-handed relievers late in close games. We saw how harmful this can be on Sunday, when both Morneau and Kubel got an opportunity to bat with the bases loaded and the Twins down by two and were both blown away by Cleveland LOOGY Tony Sipp. While Span, Mauer, Morneau and -- to a lesser extent -- Kubel can all generally hold their own against lefties, they're all much more susceptible to tough left-handed relievers than the typical right-handed hitter and there needs to be some break between the four to protect against situational lefty relievers.

So, who can fill this role? The list of potential candidates is underwhelming to say the least. Casilla, thanks to his high placement in the lineup, currently ranks fifth on the team in plate appearances, which has magnified his extremely poor production. Nick Punto has gotten on base at a decent clip up to this point (.344), but his overall offensive production (.236 AVG and .255 SLG) have not been suitable for a No. 2 hitter. Michael Cuddyer and Joe Crede don't profile as No. 2 hitters in general, and certainly not with the way they've been hitting thus far. Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez have been dreadful at the plate.

Those are pretty much all of your right-handed options, and up to this point none of them look remotely deserving of a spot near the top of the lineup. If I were making the decision, I suppose at this point I'd probably try Punto in the two-spot since he's at least been taking decent at-bats, while maybe trying Brendan Harris in that spot on days when he gets into the lineup over Punto or Casilla. That's not an ideal situation, though, and unless one of the team's struggling right-handed hitters can step up, putting together a reasonable 1-5 is going to be a challenge. For lack of appealing right-handed options at the No. 2 spot, Ron Gardenhire might just end up writing in the four lefties back-to-back, even though he rightfully despises that notion.

Left Out

After recording impressive victories on Friday and Saturday night, the Twins fell to the Indians 4-2 in yesterday's series finale to leave Cleveland with a series victory rather than a sweep. It was a good weekend for the Twins, but it's not too difficult to see why they were unable to pick up a win yesterday against left-handed starter Aaron Laffey.

Coming into the game, here were the numbers for the Twins' right-handed middle-of-the-lineup hitters against southpaws:

Michael Cuddyer: .188/.272/.385
Delmon Young: .188/.235/.375
Joe Crede: .286/.333/.500

Only Crede has been having any success against lefties so far in this young season. In total, the three hitters were 2-for-11 in the game, with both the hits being singles. The Twins need these three to step up their performance against left-handers so the offense won't be completely screwed on days where the big lefty bats -- Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel -- struggle as they did yesterday.

Of course, the impetus also falls on the team's other right-handed hitters, such as Brendan Harris (hitting .267 vs. LHP), Carlos Gomez (hitting .143 vs. LHP). The team's regular switch-hitters, Nick Punto and Alexi Casilla, have gone a combined 1-for-36 against southpaws.

Struggling against left-handers is nothing new for the Twins, but it's really not excusable given with the number of right-handed batters they can trot out against any lefty. Joe Mauer's return should provide an overall jolt to the lineup but shouldn't be expected to help them specifically in this area. Instead, the responsibility falls on guys like Cuddyer and Young to do their job and step up when left-handed pitchers are suppressing the team's big lefty bats.

Rough Starts

Here are the basic pitching statistics for the Twins' five current starters as of today:

Francisco Liriano is 0-4 with a 7.06 ERA
Scott Baker is 0-2 with a 12.46 ERA
Nick Blackburn is 0-1 with a 5.71 ERA
Kevin Slowey is 2-0 with a 5.89 ERA
Glen Perkins is 1-1 with a 1.50 ERA

Shoddy, underperforming starting pitching early in the season -- this feels vaguely familiar. On April 24, 2006...

Johan Santana was 0-3 with a 4.81 ERA.
Brad Radke was 2-2 with a 7.50 ERA
Carlos Silva was 1-3 with an 8.33 ERA.
Kyle Lohse was 1-1 with an 11.57 ERA
Scott Baker was 1-1 with a 3.31 ERA

Now, this comparison is obviously to be taken with a grain of salt since the differences between the rotation that opened the 2006 season and the Twins' current stable of starting pitchers are vast. The point of bringing up these stat lines is to remind everyone that there's a recent local precedent for almost roundly underwhelming starting pitching performances out of the gate, and it doesn't necessarily doom an entire season.

In '06, Silva and Lohse never really rebounded from their poor starts, as Silva went on to post an 11-15 record and 5.94 ERA while Lohse was booted from the rotation and later traded to the Reds with a 7.07 ERA. Baker fell off after his solid start and was also eventually removed from the rotation. Yet, Santana came back strong and ended up winning the Cy Young Award and Radke -- a pitcher with notable similarities to a few members of the current staff -- also rebounded to become a key contributor the team's amazing second-half run.

What the 2009 Twins lack is a Francisco Liriano -- or, to a lesser extent, a Boof Bonser -- who can step in from the minors and energize the rotation. Therefore, internal improvement will be the key factor for this current group. Based on their career histories and the way they finished last year, there's little reason to believe that Liriano and Baker will continue to pitch this poorly unless there are underlying health issues. Meanwhile, Slowey already showed signs of getting back on track with a very strong showing last Saturday, and he'll look to continue that progress tomorrow night against the Indians.

I'd be lying if I said I weren't somewhat concerned with the dud performances the Twins' starting pitchers have been putting forth on most nights, but I also have a very difficult time believing this nearly team-wide slump is going to last. These guys are too talented to continue getting hit this hard. Hopefully the turn-around begins tonight in Cleveland.

Stormy Days

Rainy conditions in Boston prevented the Twins and Red Sox from being able to play on Tuesday night and limited one of yesterday's double-header match-ups to seven innings, but the results of yesterday's quick sweeping from the Red Sox are ones we'd probably rather forget.

Sixteen games into the season, the Twins aren't in terrible shape as far as the standings are concerned. They're just two games under .500 at 7-9 and remain within a couple games of first place. Yet, this team has played awful baseball up to this point. Six of their nine losses have come by a margin of four or more runs, they've trailed at some point in every game they've played, and their run differential of -31 is the worst in baseball. Their only series that could be considered a success thus far was a three-game home sweep over an Angels team with a decimated pitching staff and without its best hitter. The Twins are lucky to be close to a .500 record right now, and they almost certainly won't continue to be if they can't drastically improve their play.

Yesterday's day game was just about as ugly as they come. Scott Baker continued to serve up pitches on a platter, allowing three more home runs in his 4 2/3 innings of work. He's now coughed up seven homers in 8 2/3 innings this season -- this after serving up four long balls in his final exhibition outing. Baker always has been and likely always will be somewhat homer-prone, but something is clearly wrong here because the rate he's allowing balls to leave the park is nothing short of ridiculous.

The bullpen stepped in and didn't do much to stop the bleeding. After Craig Breslow tossed 1 1/3 scoreless frames in relief of Baker, Juan Morillo came on to pitch the seventh. I mentioned on Tuesday that "In spite of [Morillo's] solid showing on Saturday night, I'm sure it won't be long before we catch a glimpse of the command issues that caused the Rockies to sour on him," and it certainly didn't take long for that to happen. Yesterday, Morillo couldn't find the strike zone with his high-90s fastball, as 13 of the 17 pitches he threw were called balls and he issued three straight walks following a double by David Ortiz before being removed without recording an out. Naturally, R.A. Dickey came in with the bases loaded and sent all of Morillo's baserunners home on a single, a sacrifice fly and a double before the game was mercifully shut down due to weather.

For its part, the offense had a miserable day against Sox starter Tim Wakefield, managing just one run on five hits over seven innings and going 1-for-10 in scoring opportunities. Alexi Casilla's 0-for-3 day dropped his average for the season to .184 while Michael Cuddyer, Joe Crede and Mike Redmond -- who have all displayed varying levels of ineptitude at the plate this year -- also went hitless in the affair.

In the nightcap, the Twins were soundly defeated again as Francisco Liriano was tagged for seven runs in four innings and the offense had another flat showing in a 7-3 loss. Cuddyer went hitless yet again and the replacements for Casilla, Crede and Redmond -- Brendan Harris, Brian Buscher and Jose Morales -- all failed to improve on the performances of their predecessors as each went hitless as well.

Between the day's two games, the Twins were outscored 17-4 and went 1-for-15 in scoring opportunities. These were a pair of bad, bad games, and unfortunately those have not been rare this season. On the bright side, it's still early and there's plenty of time to get things turned around. We can only hope that happens soon because this is hard to watch.

Shaken and Stirred

While it was encouraging to see the Twins get back on the winning track this past weekend with a series sweep over the Angels, the bullpen remains a heavy concern. Twins relievers coughed up five runs between the seventh and eighth innings on Friday night, and weren't called upon in any remotely critical situations for the rest of the series as Kevin Slowey handed a 9-2 lead to the bullpen after seven innings on Saturday and Glen Perkins handed a two-run lead directly to the closer Joe Nathan on Sunday. Still, through 14 games, Twins relievers have combined to allow a 7.03 ERA and 829 opponents' OPS this season. It's been ugly.

The beleaguered relief corps took another hit yesterday when it was announced that Jesse Crain has been placed on the disabled list with right shoulder inflammation. Crain struggled with his control on Friday night when he issued three walks and was charged with four runs over just 1/3 of an inning, but up to that point he'd easily been the team's best reliever outside of Nathan, posting a 1.59 ERA and 6-to-2 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing just one hit over his first six appearances. In spite of his struggles on Friday night, Crain was shaping up as a rare reliable arm in the Twins' pen, flashing a mid-90s fastball and an ability to miss bats. While La Velle E. Neal III reports that examinations of Crain's shoulder have revealed "slight inflammation ... nothing serious," one almost has to be alarmed to hear about any discomfort in Crain's right shoulder considering that he underwent reconstructive surgery for his labrum and rotator cuff less than two years ago. One also could be excused for being a bit dubious of this team's initial diagnoses of shoulder injuries considering how badly they missed the mark on Boof Bonser a few months ago.

Replacing Crain on the Twins roster for the time being will be Jose Mijares, who had a terrible spring but looks to have gotten back on track in Triple-A, where he allowed just two hits and zero walks while striking out four over 6 1/3 scoreless innings. Mijares adds a second left-hander to complement Craig Breslow and also could be a potent late-inning option if he returns anywhere close to the form he showed last September, but it's tough to know what you're getting from him considering how up-and-down his performances have been over the past couple years.

The other bullpen shakeup occurring over the past few days the move to was designate Philip Humber for assignment while using his open roster spot to claim Juan Morillo off waivers. Now, I will say that I'm not necessarily a fan of removing Humber from the roster as long as it means losing him from the organization (which is very likely). The 26-year-old right-hander didn't perform well this spring and hasn't looked good at all in a few regular-season appearances, but I tend to be very patient with once-promising players who dealt with major injuries, which is why I've been stubbornly hyping Jason Kubel for three years running, why I've been fairly patient with Crain, and why I will also be patient with Pat Neshek and Boof Bonser when they return. With that being the case, I still think Humber has some upside and don't like the idea of losing him for nothing, but I'm also willing to admit that his upside is probably limited at this point and losing him is unlikely to come back haunt the Twins in a major way. I certainly think he was more deserving of a spot on the roster than R.A. Dickey or Luis Ayala, but at this point the difference between those three pitchers might be negligible.

Anyway, back to Morillo. One of my chief concerns entering this season was a lack of right-handed power arms in the bullpen, thanks to season-costing injuries to Neshek and Bonser. That concern would be magnified if Crain's current ailment were to turn out to be something serious. Well, when you look at Morillo, "right-handed power arm" is one term that could pretty accurately describe him. Morillo is a fire-baller, and he displayed that in his Twins debut on Saturday night when he fired fastballs across the plate at speeds topping 95 mph on his way to a scoreless inning. Indeed, as Aaron Gleeman notes, Morillo has averaged 96.5 mph with his fastball over his brief major-league career, easily topping any member of the current Twins staff and in fact ranking as one of the hardest fastballs in all the league.

The main issue for Morillo has been harnessing that devastating fastball and throwing it in the strike zone on a consistent basis. Morillo has averaged 5.4 walks per nine innings over the course of his minor-league career, and last year in Triple-A he issued 56 walks in 59 2/3 innings for a ghastly 8.4 BB/9IP rate. In spite of his solid showing on Saturday night, I'm sure it won't be long before we catch a glimpse of the command issues that caused the Rockies to sour on him. Adding an erratic arm like that to a bullpen that has already been dealing with some serious control issues doesn't sound like a recipe for relief, but Morillo will initially assume Humber's role as a low-leverage backend guy, and given the Twins' history of turning discarded relievers with historically mediocre control into useful bullpen parts (Dennys Reyes and Craig Breslow come to mind), this certainly seems like a worthwhile project. If Rick Anderson can find a way to improve Morillo's control even modestly, he could turn into a powerful weapon for a Twins team that currently lacks hard throwers outside of Nathan.

For the time being, the Twins have subbed out Crain and Humber for Mijares and Morillo. The latter two both have electric arms and considerable upside, but also have struggled to consistently throw strikes in their young careers. They'll now jump into a bullpen desperate for quality innings, in an organization known for teaching control. It would seem that both are exactly where they need to be in order to succeed.

A Good Weekend

This post is going up at about noon on Monday, and these mid-day postings might become a more common occurrance this season as I won't always have time to get something up before bed but would like to have new posts up on most days. So if you come by in the morning and there is nothing new, please consider checking back later in the day. Anyway, back to baseball...

The Twins seemingly got back on track this weekend, and all the jolt they needed was a two-out, cycle-completing, go-ahead grand slam. Who would've thought it'd be so easy?

After Jason Kubel's heroics highlighted a dramatic late comeback on Friday night, the Twins got a resurgent outing from Kevin Slowey in a dominant 9-2 victory on Saturday night and then received yet another eight-inning gem from Glen Perkins on the way to a 3-1 win yesterday to complete the series sweep. Finally the doomsday proclamations have calmed down as the Twins are back to .500 and a game out of first place. What a difference a weekend makes.

Of course, three straight wins don't make this team's problems go away. The bullpen looked absolutely awful on Friday night and remains a heavy concern. We still need to see Scott Baker get on track, which he can hopefully do tomorrow night in Boston. And several hitters in the lineup continue to struggle, including Alexi Casilla and Carlos Gomez.

But, for the time being, this was a good weekend. It must have felt good for the Twins to be on the other side of some tough outcomes they've suffered through this year: the bullpen implosion, the blowout loss, and coming up short in a low-scoring affair.

Now, the challenge becomes keeping it up and turning a good weekend into a good week. Next on the docket is a two-game series in Fenway Park. Let's hope it takes a little bit less to spark the team into action in this series than it did in the last one.

On Gomez and the Bullpen

Sorry for the lack of blogging this week, but the team's play over the last few days hasn't exactly inspired me to find time in what has been a busy schedule to write about them. Scott Baker's much-anticipated return on Wednesday night turned out to be a dud (reminding us that spring training performances aren't always totally without significance) and the Twins dropped three of four at home against the Blue Jays while getting outscored 31-13. Ouch.

Today I'll address a couple things that have been popular subjects of conversation amongst Twins fans here early in the season: Carlos Gomez and the bullpen.

First, let's talk about Go-Go. He's started his season with another of his signature slumps, managing just three hits in 29 at-bats for a dreadful .103/.133/.207 hitting line. Howard Sinker yesterday suggested that the Twins send Gomez to Triple-A to work on his swing, reasoning that "there’s no way (other than the “give him time, he’ll snap out of it” speech) that playing Gomez regularly can be justified right now."

Well, that's not really true. Given the fly ball tendencies of the Twins pitching staff, one could argue that center field is the most important defensive position on the field for this team (aside from catcher). And Gomez covers more ground in center than perhaps any other player in the league. Right now, Gomez is serving what I'd call the "Adam Everett role" -- that is, playing stellar defense at a crucial position while offering next to nothing offensively -- but in his prime Everett was a pretty valuable player. And we know Gomez is capable of doing more than Everett with the bat.

In spite of his offensive struggles, Gomez has still looked very good in center field. And sending him to Rochester leaves the Twins with an outfield alignment (per Sinker's suggestion) of Jason Kubel, Denard Span and Michael Cuddyer against right-handers, or the latter two and Delmon Young against left-handers. Those are both humongous defensive downgrades from the Span-Gomez-Cuddyer alignment, and would saddle an already struggling pitching staff with another disadvantage. Improving the offense is an important task right now, but by removing Gomez as a regular the Twins would be addressing this issue at the expense of another important task, which is getting better results from their pitchers.

I don't doubt that Gomez would probably benefit from some time in Triple-A, but his presence on this team remains important even when he's struggling with the bat, and the idea that he serves the Twins no benefit right now is simply false. He's been a huge liability in the lineup up to this point, but I'm confident he'll turn it around and I have a hard time singling him out when so many of this team's hitters are struggling. His utility right now is in run prevention, which is no less important than run scoring.

Speaking of run prevention, it figured to be a major strength for the Twins this season but they haven't done a very good job of it thus far, allowing an average of 6.2 runs per game over their first 11 contests. Certainly, that falls heavily on the starting rotation, which has been roundly underwhelming with the exception of Glen Perkins. But these kids are going to bounce back. They are too talented to pitch like this for much longer, and last night's game looked like a solid step in the right direction for Francisco Liriano.

The larger concern is the bullpen. Joe Nathan and Jesse Crain have looked good, but outside of them it seems that nobody in this bullpen can be relied upon to get any outs. Last night, Ron Gardenhire turned to the bullpen in a one-run game after getting six solid innings from Liriano only to watch Matt Guerrier, Craig Breslow and R.A. Dickey combine to surrender seven runs in a disastrous seventh inning. Guerrier had pitched pretty well in his first few outings but reverted to 2008 form last night as his ERA ballooned to 8.44 ERA. Breslow has apparently forgotten how to find the strike zone -- he's thrown 39 pitches this year and only 16 of them have been strikes. Dickey looks like every bit the hittable junk tosser he has been throughout his career. Luis Ayala pitched decently last night but has been extremely unimpressive overall with a 7.36 ERA and .394 opponents' batting average.

The struggles of mop-up guys like Dickey and Philip Humber aren't overly concerning, but Guerrier, Breslow and Ayala are being relied upon as key components of this bullpen, and if their struggles continue, the Twins are going to have to start looking at replacement options. In Rochester, Jose Mijares has gotten his season off to a strong start, allowing just one hit and zero walks over his first 5 1/3 innings of work. Meanwhile, in New Britain, Rob Delaney has allowed three hits while posting a 9-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in his first 5 1/3 innings, and Anthony Slama has allowed one hit in four innings with a 7-to-1 K/BB ratio. It's still very early, obviously, but all three of these relievers have good arms and are coming off great seasons, so there's little reason to think they won't continue to succeed. If they can keep dominating while the big-league bullpen continues to struggle, the Twins should not hesitate to recall Mijares, or to promote Slama and/or Delaney to Triple-A... or perhaps even straight to the majors.

Avoiding the Inevitable

Last night's Twins game was the first I've attended this season, and aside from the 15 or so text messages I received at the end of the game containing some variation of "How about that Crede, eh??" after the Twins' third baseman delivered a walk-off RBI double in the eleventh, the memory that sticks with me the most is the horrible managerial decision that nearly cost the Twins a win.

There are plenty of occasions where I disagree with a coaching decision in a baseball game, but it's pretty rare that I am absolutely, unequivocally positive that the wrong move was made. That happened tonight, though. With Glen Perkins pitching in the eighth inning and working on a second straight gem, the Twins held a 2-1 lead with two outs and the tying run on second base. Vernon Wells, a righty and one of the Blue Jays' better hitters, was at the plate, and Perkins had fallen behind 2-0. Rick Anderson came out to talk to Perkins, and it seemed obvious how he would advise his pitcher. On deck was Adam Lind, a left-handed hitter with a .241/293/.374 career line against southpaws, so the clear strategy was to have Perkins stay away from the strike zone on his last two pitches and walk Wells, filling first base and taking on Lind in a much more favorable matchup. Instead, Perkins came right at Wells, surrending a game-tying RBI single on his very next pitch to tie the game. The Twins still won and Perkins still finished with another excellent outing, but that was a potentially disastrous managerial decision that really cannot be excused.

Someone sitting near us at the game last night called me a "Negative Nancy." I realize this post has done nothing to dispel that nickname. Oh well. Hopefully the Twins pull off a more convincing victory tonight and leave me with nothing to complain about.

Thoughts on the Weekend Series

The Twins dropped two of three in Chicago this weekend, and aside from the win on Friday night in which they broke out for 12 runs, the offense really hasn't looked good so far in this young season. The Twins have been held to one or zero runs in four of the seven games they've played up to this point, and unsurprisingly have gone 0-4 in those contests. They'll need to get on track if they hope to succeed in their four-gamer against the 5-2 Blue Jays, who've averaged 6.6 runs per game.

Here are a few observations on the series against the Sox, and the rest of season up to this point...

* Francisco Liriano really struggled with his command on Saturday, issuing four walks -- two forcing in runs with the bases loaded -- while lasting just 4 2/3 innings in a blowout loss. Through two starts, Liriano is 0-2 with a 6.94 ERA and has had trouble hitting his spots in both starts. Let's not forget, though, that Liriano also experienced command struggles at the beginning of last season before bouncing back splendidly in Rochester and carrying those improvements forward to become one the American League's better second-half pitchers.

Watching Liriano has been a bit frustrating up to this point, but I don't think there's a ton of reason to worry yet.

* Joe Crede has started all seven games up to this point, and his back appears to be in fine shape. Defensively, Crede has looked very solid, flashing his range on a few impressive plays and handling almost everything sent his way. Offensively, he's looked like just the player I expected; he hasn't gotten many hits -- just four in 25 at-bats -- but when he has hit he's been able to do so with some power, as two of those hits have gone for extra bases.

Crede has looked fine thus far, but I would like to see Brian Buscher get a chance to start against a right-hander. He may get that opportunity tonight when the Twins face Jesse Litsch.

* For all the talking about his efforts to improve his plate discipline during the offseason in spring, Gomez has struck out nine times while drawing one walk in his first 23 plate appearances.

* The Twins' offensive struggles are understandable to some extent given that they've been playing without one of their best hitters in Joe Mauer, but the rest of the hitters in this lineup simply aren't pulling their weight right now. Gomez, Crede, Mike Redmond and Delmon Young are all hitting below .200 thus far. Michael Cuddyer is hitting .231 and Justin Morneau is hitting .259. The only Twins regular with a batting average over .300 thus far is Nick Punto. Go figure.

Quick and Painful

Yesterday, Glen Perkins finally answered the Twins' call for a strong outing from a starting pitcher. In fact, he went above and beyond, tossing eight innings of one-run ball. Unfortunately, the rest of the team didn't show much appreciation, delivering a punchless performance against Jarrod Washburn and dropping the series finale 2-0 to finish with a split in their opening set against the Mariners.

The game was reminiscent of so many we've seen from this team before. Going against a mediocre left-hander, the Twins could never string together any type of rally, managing just five hits (zero for extra bases) and failing to move a runner past first base until the eighth inning. If there was one positive to be drawn from the game, it may have been that those who cut out of work to head over to the Metrodome had plenty of time to go back to work and finish their day (then again, maybe that's not really a positive). The contest barely ran longer than two hours thanks to the quick work of Washburn, who posted a 4.69 ERA last season and a 6.60 ERA this spring.

A series victory would have been nice entering this weekend's series at U.S. Cellular, where Twins pitchers surrendered a 928 OPS and 6.80 ERA last season. As it stands, the Twins will have a tough time leaving Chicago with a winning record. Tonight they'll be trotting out R.A. Dickey, who has a 6.31 career ERA as a starter, and on Sunday the White Sox will start Mark Buehrle, a much tougher lefty than Washburn. I'm confident that the Twins will get on track and start rattling off some wins at some point, but I'd be surprised if it were this weekend.

Slow Start

Kevin Slowey was a popular sleeper pick entering the 2009 season. In fact, he was so popular that by the time Opening Day rolled around, he wasn't really a "sleeper" at all.

Slowey went higher than I expected in each fantasy baseball draft I participated in, and if you asked just about any Twins fan which pitcher they expected to deliver a break-out performance this year, his was the name you'd almost always hear. But can a player really "break out" after posting a 3.99 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 123-to-24 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 160 1/3 innings? How much more are we expecting from Slowey. The pressure has been building for the 24-year-old to match some suddenly lofty expectations in just his second full season as a major-leaguer.

In his first start of the 2009 season, Slowey fell short of those expectations. He picked up a win last night, but that was mostly because he was going against Carlos Silva, who the Twins punched around for six runs in five innings. For his part, Slowey allowed five runs on nine hits over six innings, surrendering a pair of homers while never looking totally in control.

Now, this is not a major cause for concern. Being that Slowey tops out at about 90 mph on the radar gun, he's bound to have problems unless he's commanding his pitches to a tee. Most nights, he's able to do that. Last night, he wasn't, and the results weren't particularly pretty. I think we saw enough from Slowey last year and this spring to be confident that he'll bounce back with better command the next time around.

It's worth noting that this pitching rotation which figured to spit out Quality Start after Quality Start has yet to produce a single one through three games. We'll see if Glen Perkins can buck that trend today when he goes against Jarrod Washburn this afternoon.

Wild Finish, First Win

These Twins are no strangers to comeback victories -- they had a few memorable ones last year. Yet, last night's 6-5 victory over the Mariners came about in perhaps the most unlikely of ways.

The Twins had struggled offensively for much of the night in large part because they consistently put together poor at-bats. Against starter Erik Bedard, Twins hitters struck out eight times over five innings while drawing zero walks and chasing several pitches out of the zone. Yet, in the ninth, the Twins took advantage of a potent but erratic young arm, spoiling Brandon Morrow's first save opportunity of the year by drawing three straight two-out walks and then bringing them all around to erase a 5-3 deficit and notching their first win of the season.

The real highlight of that thrilling ninth inning was the work put in by the Twins' bench bats. As I discussed with John Bonnes on the GameNight podcast following the game, this bench is one of the best the Twins have boasted in recent memory, and it was on full display last night. Jason Kubel, who was the odd man out of the outfield shuffle last night, followed Carlos Gomez's two-out walk by drawing a four-pitch walk of his own while hitting in place of Jose Morales. Nick Punto was next in the lineup, and so Ron Gardenhire went to Brian Buscher, who put together a great at-bat of his own and ended up walking to load the bases. That sent the action back to the top of the Twins' lineup, where Denard Span and Alexi Casilla delivered consecutive hits to give the Twins an exciting first victory.

There are plenty of interesting storylines to come out of this game -- from Nick Blackburn's disappointing start to the bullpen's resilient performance to Span's great night at the plate -- but in the end the quality pinch-hit at-bats late in the game are the lasting memory. A bench made up of Buscher, Brendan Harris, Mike Redmond (once Joe Mauer returns) and whichever outfielder isn't starting has the potential to be one of the best this franchise has seen in years, and perhaps one of the better units in the league.

The Twins have struggled against the first two starters they've faced this season, but in both cases they've had a pretty good excuse. If they both stay healthy, Bedard and Felix Hernandez can potentially be one of the very best 1-2 punches in baseball this year. If the Twins lineup continues to struggle against Carlos Silva tonight, though, perhaps some criticism will be deserved. For now, though, I'll just bask in a wild but supremely satisfying finish to the second game of this young season.

An Inauspicious Start

Plenty of excitement led up to last night's season opener, which fans have been looking forward to ever since the Twins dropped game No. 163 against the White Sox last fall, but unfortunately the sellout crowd in the Metrodome found little to get excited about during the actual game. The Twins managed just one run on six hits while falling 6-1 to the Mariners in their season opener.

While there's nothing fun about dropping the first game of the season, nothing from Monday night's contest merits particular concern. The Twins offense was shut down by an excellent starting pitcher, and while Francisco Liriano's results weren't great -- four runs over seven innings -- he allowed zero walks after struggling with his command this spring and induced a ton of ground balls.

I suspect the Twins will give a better performance tonight, when Nick Blackburn faces off against Erik Bedard. 

Opening Day Site Update

After a long offseason of waiting, baseball is here again. With it comes a wonderful mix of excitement and uncertainty. Not to mention some fairly significant changes to this old blog.

Those who have visited this site regularly are undoubtedly aware that, in spite of the "Nick & Nick" title that has existed since its inception, I have been essentially the sole contributor for about a year and a half now. Nick Mosvick, who originally alternated daily posts with me, is in Virginia working hard on earning a law degree, and his obligations there make it impossible for him to be heavily involved with this site. His hard work in the past remains an important foundation of this blog and I hope he'll still stop by on occasion to chime in with his thoughts, but the reality is that for now and for the foreseeable future, I'll be running this thing.

To reflect this, and to eliminate the confusion that the original title seems to create amongst newer readers, I've changed the blog's name to "Nick's Twins Blog." Creative, I know. I've also changed the Web address so the site can now be accessed through the URL: http://www.nickstwinsblog.com/. The old URL will still lead you here, so there's no need to change bookmarks, but the new one is simpler. To be honest, I've been meaning to get a domain name for this site for some time and to do away with the old http://twinsfanatnicks.blogspot.com/ address, which I originally thought was quite clever but have now come to find juvenile and extremely hard to explain in regular conversation.

Changing the title, URL and logo (special thanks to Tom Ecker for the new design!) of the blog certainly qualifies as the most drastic change this place has seen in its four-plus years of existence, but it won't really affect the site's day-to-day operations in any meaningful way. It'll still be me posting my inane thoughts about this club and generally getting ripped for overrating Brian Buscher. With that said, I will admit that the frequency of posting may drop a little bit this season. It currently looks like I'll have summer writing obligations with Rotoworld.com, Heater Magazine, BaseballDigest.com, probably GameDay Magazine and possibly Inside Edge. Balancing all that with this blog, a "real world" full-time job and leisure activities will undoubtedly prove to be a challenge. It's likely that there will be weeks where I'm only able to post three times or so, and if that happens please try to bear with me. By no means do I want to neglect my writing duties here, but sometimes it gets to the end of the night and I just don't have the energy to write up a worthwhile post. Especially when the Twins lose 1-0 and strand 12 runners on base. If posting gets to be too sporadic for comfort, I might look into some new possibilities, such as bringing in guest writers or ditching the current formula of posting at midnight every weekday and instead posting at random times of day whenever I get an opportunity, without any set schedule.

Anyway, I suspect most of you don't care much about an ultimately trivial name change to the blog or my personal workload, which is why I generally try to do these "site update" things only once a year. So if you've read this far, I'd just like to say thanks for visiting, and thanks especially to those of you who visit regularly and share your thoughts in the comment section or my email box. Interacting with readers is definitely my favorite part of this whole deal and I've learned an immense amount about the game of baseball through conversations with some of the awesome fans this team has. I'm really looking forward to what should be a fantastic season of baseball. Let's wish the boys luck tonight, and for the next 161+ games.

The Nicks' Picks 2009

Without further ado, mine and Mosvick's predictions for the winners of each division, the World Series and the major postseason awards.

The Nelson Picks

AL East: New York

AL Central: Cleveland

AL West: Los Angeles

AL Wild Card: Tampa Bay

NL East: New York

NL Central: St. Louis

NL West: Los Angeles

NL Wild Card: Phillies

World Series: NY Yankees over St. Louis

AL Cy Young: CC Sabathia
NL Cy Young: Roy Oswalt

AL MVP: Grady Sizemore
NL MVP: Albert Pujols

AL Rookie of the Year: Matt Wieters
NL Rookie of the Year: Dexter Fowler

The Mosvick Picks

AL East: Tampa Bay

AL Central: Cleveland

AL West: Oakland

AL Wild Card: New York

NL East: Atlana

NL Central: Chicago

NL West: Arizona

NL Wild Card: Phillies

World Series: Tampa Bay over Arizona

AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke
NL Cy Young: Dan Haren

AL MVP: Miguel Cabrera
NL MVP: Hanley Ramirez

AL Rookie of the Year: David Price
NL Rookie of the Year: Cameron Maybin

Spring Wrap-Up Notes

I'm going to post some quick final spring-related thoughts today, then tomorrow I'll post predictions for division winners and awards, then it's the weekend and then Opening Day. We're so close!

* Yesterday's game received a lot of hype since R.A. Dickey and Philip Humber, two relievers vying for one of two remaining spots on the pitching staff (or perhaps competing for one spot if you believe that Brian Duensing has a lock on a bullpen spot as a second lefty), were both scheduled to pitch. Dickey got the start and tossed four scoreless frames, allowing three hits and a walk while striking out three. Humber relieved him and struggled in his three-inning appearance, surrendering two runs -- including a homer -- on five hits. He did fan three batters without allowing a walk.

From a numbers standpoint, Dickey has certainly made the better case for a roster spot this spring, posting a 2.04 ERA and 18-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing 13 hits over 17 2/3 innings. For his part, Humber has posted a 5.14 ERA and 8-to-2 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing 15 hits over 14 innings. Yet regardless of the numbers, the Twins should certainly opt for Humber, who is out of options and would surely be lost on waivers if he was cut. Humber has shown enough glimpses of hope during the second half of last year and during this spring that he's worth keeping around as a long reliever. If he continues to struggle early in the season, Dickey will be available in Rochester.

* With Jose Morales behind the plate yesterday, the Rays went 5-for-5 on stolen base attempts. Now, those steals all came with Humber on the mound, so it's possible that the Rays runners saw something in his delivery that allowed them to get big jumps. But if getting run on like this becomes a habit for Morales, he's going to have a tough time serving as the Twins' part-time catcher early in the season.

* Denard Span posted another 0-fer yesterday, going hitless in four at-bats to drop his spring average to .158. Boy, has he had a tough time in Ft. Myers.

* The Tigers scare me a little more after announcing that Fernando Rodney will be their Opening Day closer and Rick Porcello will open the season in their rotation. Plus, they parted ways with Gary Sheffield.

* The forecast for Minneapolis on Monday is a high of 38 degrees with scattered snow showers. I can honestly say I'd still rather be watching the season opener outdoors than in the Metrodome.

* If you're interested, be sure to check out the baseball page at Rotoworld.com tomorrow for my "The Week Ahead" column. I'll be writing it for every Friday during the baseball season. Speaking of fantasy baseball, I've got a lot invested in Grady Sizemore this year -- he was my first-round pick in three of the four leagues in which I participate. In the Twins Blogger League, I somehow managed to get Sizemore and Miguel Cabrera. Other players I'll be leaning on this year include Joba Chamberlain, who I selected in three leagues, and Jason Kubel, who I own in every league. Surprisingly, I resisted the urge to nab Joe Crede in the late rounds of each draft.

* Finally, I'll note that some relatively big changes for this blog are on the way. They'll be announced on Monday. It's not anything that will really change the content or anything like that, but it's something.

Trimming and Tweaking

With Opening Day only five short days away, the Twins’ final roster is starting to shape up. Yesterday, they predictably cut Jose Mijares following a very rough spring as well as infielder Alejandro Machado. Catcher Jeff Christy was informed that he’ll stay with the team until Saturday before being dismissed from big-league camp.

The surprise of the day came in the news that the Twins will carry Jose Morales north as backup catcher rather than Drew Butera. All spring, indications had been given that Butera had a substantial edge over Morales thanks to his defense and game-calling ability, but in the end the Twins went with Morales and his higher offensive upside.

Ah, how things have changed. It seems that the Ron Gardenhire of 2006 -- the one who cut Jason Bartlett in favor of Juan Castro -- would have almost certainly opted for the punchless defensive specialist in this situation. But clearly Gardy’s methods have changed, otherwise we’d see the Twins bringing both Morales and Butera north, considering how fiercely the manager once believed that a third catcher was a dire necessity. Gardenhire retains some of his annoying managerial habits, but if you’re looking for proof that he is evolving and adjusting as a big-league skipper, this is a pretty good example.

For what it’s worth, I think Morales is the right choice. There’s sound logic in carrying a backup catcher who is a great game-caller and can ably handle the young pitching staff, but the 26-year-old Morales deserves a shot. Plus, since Morales isn’t a total offensive liability, the Twins can afford to play him more often in an effort to keep the 37-year-old Redmond fresh. The move might backfire if Morales proves unequipped for the job defensively or if his ankle flares up, but coaches seem adamant that he’s made serious progress in that department this spring. And if anything goes wrong, calling up Butera to take over is a quick and easy process, which is why carrying three catchers never really made any sense.