Thanksgiving

In the spirit of the holidays, here are a few things for which I am thankful — generally Twins related:

1.) I’m thankful that the Twins biggest star is Joe Mauer, and not some other schmuck.  I say this because I think there is a legitimate opportunity to keep Mauer a Twin for the remainder of his career — I’m not saying it’s a done deal, just that there’s a great chance — whereas virtually any other player of his caliber would be likely to walk at the end of his first contract.  I legitimately believe the Twins can commit a significant chunk of change to Mauer and still find ways to win, and that a World Series title is not out of the question with a team built around Mauer in his prime.

2.) I’m thankful that Twins fans are no longer in the position that Vikings fans are, wondering if the team is a scant few years away from leaving Minnesota.

3.) I’m thankful that Ozzie Guillen is NOT the Twins manager.

4.) I’m thankful that the BBWAA voters generally did their job well with the major awards this year — something that isn’t always the case.  Of course, they could still use some work on those Gold Gloves . . .

5.) I’m thankful that the uniform unveiling revealed uniforms that I can live with.  I’ll particularly miss the home uniforms from 1987 and 1991, because they are so closely associated with the world championships and with the players that I loved growing up.  Nonetheless, I don’t hate the new styles, and I somewhat expected do.  I don’t particularly like change, after all.  I think they did a good job, though, and look forward to seeing the uni’s on the field.

Of course, I’m also thankful for family, friends, and readers.  I wish all of you the best today, and hope you get a chance to enjoy your holiday.  Don’t get crushed in the Black Friday crowds tomorrow!  And yes, that AFL season-ender is still brewing — look for it by the weekend, unless I get distracted again.

Biggest Anti-Climax of the Off-Season

As of 1:00 CT, Joe Mauer officially became the 2009 AL MVP.  But let’s be honest — this thing was over before it even began.  I am thrilled that he won, but it felt like such a lock that I was more relieved than excited when the announcement came down.  It appears that Mauer took in a whopping 27 of 28 first place votes.  For once, then, the baseball journos and the stat-heads were pretty much in agreement.  It is perhaps that fact that serves notice as to just how special a season Mauer had.  You can look at his 2009 season from virtually any angle and still arrive at the conclusion that he deserved to be MVP.

I know (because I read far too many comments on MVP-related internet stories in the last few days) that there are arguments to be had in favor of Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira.  But when a player has a truly special season, one of the best (and arguably the very best) ever put together by a player at his position, and manages to lead his team into post-season play, he has a pretty solid claim to the award.  There will undoubtedly be Yankee die-hards who will claim that Jeter wuz robbed by another Twin.  In 2006, I was receptive to the argument.  In 2009, it just seems silly.

Now, the Twins need to figure out how to sign Mauer long term.  Buster Olney has an interesting article up today comparing Mauer to Todd Helton circa 2003.  It’s an interesting article, and I recommend it to any ESPN insider who is interested in the question of whether the Twins should re-sign Mauer knowing that he’ll eat up a huge portion of their salary.  I’ve felt all along that Mauer’s value to the Twins (especially as a catcher) is simply so high compared to any possible replacement that even breaking the bank is a wise investment, so long as the team develops minor league talent (something they’ve done well with in the past) to complement him.  Hopefully, by the time Spring Training rolls around, we’ll be worrying about what the 2011 budget will look like given Mauer’s huge contract extension . . .

PS:  I had hoped to get the final AFL post up today, but it’s not happening.  Expect it tomorrow or Wednesday.  Until then, just reminisce about Mauer’s season-that-was, and dream ahead to the opening of Target Field in April.

40-Man Roster Thoughts

The Twins 40-man roster is once again full after the Twins made 6 additions — and a subtraction — before the deadline to protect players from the upcoming Rule 5 Draft.  Earlier this off-season, I posted my thoughts on who I thought the Twins might protect.  Aside from my blunder on Anthony Slama (namely, forgetting about the draft-and-follow process that used to exist) and my confusion over Rene Tosoni (which was also pondered in a previous post), I didn’t do too badly.

First, the addition of third baseman Danny Valencia was never really in doubt.  Whether or not the Twins decide to sign a third baseman on the market, Valencia will get a long look in Spring Training.  Having added him to the 40-man roster, the Twins now have several years (if necessary) to evaluate him further.  I would personally bet against his being on the opening day roster in 2010 — I think there’s some work ahead for him in Rochester — but there was absolutely no reason to expose him to the Rule 5 Draft.

The biggest surprise of the list for me was the other infielder added by the team — middle infielder Estarlin De Los Santos.  For me, this selection is at least a year premature.  De Los Santos spent his 2009 season in Ft. Myers, hitting .290/727 in 262 AB’s with 11 steals in 15 attempts.  Those are nice numbers in somewhat limited action, sure — but to me, it just doesn’t seem likely that a team would draft De Los Santos and find a way to keep him on the big league roster for a whole season.  Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about De Los Santos and have never seen him play — maybe there’s something special there that just isn’t immediately apparent from the numbers.  If I were in Bill Smith’s position, though, I probably would have protected someone else this year and waited to see what De Los Santos did in 2010.

The Twins also added four pitchers.  For me, there was very little surprise in the addition of either Alex Burnett or Rob Delaney, both of whom I included in my second tier of candidates for protection.  I felt there were a couple of niggling issues with both that made it at least possible that they wouldn’t be added (unlike Valencia, who I thought was a sure thing), but that both were likely additions because of their past performance.

The other two additions were more interesting.  I had Deolis Guerra, the last direct link in the organization to the Johan Santana trade, in a category all his own during my prediction post, listing him as a Wild Card.  We keep hearing about Guerra’s potential, and there are reasons to think that he may be starting to put things together.  It’s more likely to me that a team like Washington or Pittsburgh would take a guy like Guerra and stash him away in a dark corner of the bullpen for a summer — much like the Twins did with Johan Santana — than it would be with a middle infielder.  As a result, I agree with the decision to protect Guerra, and hopefully he will continue to improve next season.

Finally, the Twins decided to protect Loek Van Mil — the 7′1″ Nederlander.  This was always a possibility — with his physical tools, he could be an imposing presence in a future Twins bullpen.  I would still argue that he’s still a project.  He needs to improve his K-BB rate a bit, for one thing.  But in terms of sure intrigue, this move was at the top of this year’s Rule 5 moves.

The Twins also had to remove a player from the roster in order to make room for these additions.  The short straw was drawn by Deibinson Romero, who was added last year and who spent this year flailing away in the Florida State League with the Ft. Myers Miracle.  Romero took a significant step back in 2009 and he was a clear choice for removal.  I would imagine another year in the FSL is on tap for 2010.

With the roster now full, the Twins could not add a free agent without removing someone.  Three names stand out to me:  Jason Pridie, Bobby Keppel, and Alexi Casilla.  The Twins will probably NOT cut Casilla to make room for a free agent, but I think they should.  He’s out of options, and as I’ve said before I don’t see him making the 25-man roster next year with Nick Punto returning, J.J. Hardy at SS, and Matt Tolbert being around.  The Twins should cut ties with him now rather than having him take up a roster spot.  The Twins can also do better than Keppel in the bullpen, and if they sign a free agent reliever Keppel would be the clear choice to be removed.  Pridie simply seems dispensable at this point, and since the Twins didn’t bother to call him up in September I’m not sure what they think his role is.  Since Carlos Gomez is no longer around, Pridie might be in the mix for a roster spot as the backup outfielder (I’m not really sure who the Twins expect to play in CF if Denard Span is injured, for instance) — but I put him on this list because the Twins just don’t seem to be all that interested in him.

When we get closer to December 10 I’ll post my thoughts on which Twins players I think are in danger of being taken in the Rule 5 draft.  Maybe by then the Twins will have added a free agent — although I’m not holding my breath!

Blog Update

I’m not ignoring yesterday’s additions to the 40-man roster — I just haven’t had a chance since I got home yesterday to put together a post.  Today is also out as I’m about to leave to spend the day with family (and eat lots of shrimp and/or other seafood at Red Lobster).  Expect a 40-man roster post sometime on Sunday.  After that is up, I’ll probably let it breathe at the top of the blog by itself for a day before posting the final AFL post of the year.  That will be both a summary of the action on the last 4 days of play and a summary of the season as a whole, with final thoughts on how the 7 Twins who were involved performed.  If I get the chance (and I think I will) I should be able to write that post on Sunday at the same time as I write the 40-man post, so even though I have a busy Monday on the schedule I should be able to set it up to post on Monday afternoon.  Meanwhile, enjoy your weekend everybody!

Transactions Update

I’m tired, but I wanted to get this post up.  Feel free to prod me in the comments if this makes no sense whatsoever!

One of the yearly off-season milestones that transaction dorks like myself tend to follow with far too much interest is the release of the list of minor league free agents.  For the most part, players who have kicked around the minor leagues long enough to gain minor league free agency without earning enough respect from a major league team to be on a 40-man roster aren’t the most exciting or promising ballplayers in the world.  Still, the names are often familiar, simply due to the number of years we fans have had to follow their careers.  The list of players leaving the organization in this way (at least for the moment — these guys can, and often do, return to the team) is as follows:

Frank Mata – RHP
Oswaldo Sosa – RHP
Reid Santos – LHP
Brock Peterson – 1B
Alejandro Machado – IF
Brian Buscher – 3B
Matt Moses – OF
David Winfree – OF

What to say about this bunch?  First, lets just recognize that the loss of these players is not exactly a huge blow to the team.  Brian Buscher was probably the best of the bunch.  We’ve all known this day was coming for guys like Brock Peterson and Matt Moses.  What chance, exactly, did Peterson have of advancing to the big leagues when his position is blocked by former MVP Justin Morneau and DH Jason Kubel?  Exactly.  The kicker is that Peterson actually is coming off a pretty nice season — he hit .304/844 in 316 AB’s for Rochester in 2009.  There just wasn’t really any reason to give him a spot on the 40-man roster, and he will hopefully find another place to ply his trade.  Actually, the Twins couldn’t have expected Peterson to perform as well as he has — he was a 49th round pick in the 2002 draft.

On the end of the spectrum is Matt Moses.  Moses, of course, was a first round pick in 2003.  Unlike Peterson, who seriously over-performed and ultimately ended his Twins career on a high note, Moses ended with a flop and is almost certainly done in baseball.  Moses has spent at least parts of the last five seasons in AA New Britain, culminating with a 2009 season that saw him hit .224/627.  High profile picks don’t always pan out, but it’s still sad when the end finally comes.

I don’t have much to say about the other guys.  Mata had some nice stats in 2009 pitching for New Britain, but nothing that would blow anyone away.  Machado was always filler in my mind.  Sosa flamed out in mid-2007 and was never the same — and missed virtually the entire 2009 season.  His loss is not that hard to take.  Winfree had some power and might catch on somewhere, but didn’t seem like a priority to keep around.  What else to say?  Not much.

Finally, I said I’d talk about Juan Morillo and his departure for greener pastures (well, neon green) in Japan.  What surprised me was that the Twins had just added him to the 40-man roster only to turn around and let him head overseas.  I’m not sure how that worked out, but I read somewhere that the Twins were going to get some sort of compensation for him from the Japanese team that signed him.  I frankly know nothing about that, but can’t imagine it would be anything but some cash.  Every little bit helps, I suppose.  The disappointing thing is that Morillo could possibly have helped out next year.  While I don’t think he was ready to burst onto the scene as a setup man or anything like that, I do think that he was improving his control and could have been a nice piece to have around.  Justin Huber also left for Japan, but this didn’t really bother me — as I’ve said repeatedly since the end of the season, I just didn’t see a future for Huber in Minnesota.  Good luck to these two across the (bigger) pond.

Weekly Roundup – Arizona Fall League

There are just four days of Arizona Fall League action left this season, so this week’s roundup is the second-to-last.  Hopefully the guys can finish strong!

The Good

Alex Burnett – RP

Burnett has been on a serious roll, not having allowed a run in 7 innings of work since October 21.  This week, Burnett struck out 4 while walking just 2 in 3 innings over 2 games.  He now has a respectable 2.79 ERA and 1.34 WHIP in 10.1 innings, and his K-BB ratio is finally on the right side of 1.00, settling in at 10-9.

Spencer Steedley – RP

Steedley also had a nice week, pitching three scoreless innings and allowing 3 hits and picking up a strikeout.  His season ERA has fallen to 3.75, and his WHIP (while still bad) has dropped to 2.17 in 12 innings of work.  His 7-12 K-BB ratio is still out of kilter, but with no walks this week he at least improved it.

Chris Parmelee – 1B/OF

I had to think pretty hard about where to put Parmelee this week.  On the one hand, he went 5-21 and struck out 7 times without a walk.  That would normally qualify a guy for a bad week.  However, Parmelee also drove in 3 runs while scoring 3 more, hit a couple doubles and a homerun, and most importantly for my decision, went 5-10 on Friday and Saturday.  The early part of his week was dreadful, but I’m going to give him credit for coming on strong at the end of the week.  Parmelee is now hitting .243/868 on the season, with 21 K’s and 8 walks.

Steve Singleton – 2B/3B

Singleton has had a pretty nice AFL season, and it continued this week.  His 3-14 average was not particularly inspiring — but it didn’t stop Singleton from continuing to produce runs.  Two of Singleton’s hits were homeruns, and he drove in 5 runs while scoring 4 more.  His 5 K’s this week were a bit gaudy (and doubled his season total), but the run production being what it was I would have a hard time scoring him as anything other than Good for the week.  For the season, Singleton is now hitting .281/768 with 10 K’s and a walk.

The Bad

Rene Tosoni – OF

Tosoni went 4-20 this week with an RBI and a run scored.  He also struck out 6 times with a walk.  This is another mediocre week that I’m putting into the bad category because there was nothing particularly special to rescue it.  Tosoni is now hitting .238/634 with 21 K’s  and 9 walks.

The Ugly

Steven Hirschfeld – SP, RP

Hirschfeld got another three inning start this week, but things didn’t go quite as well as in his first start.  This time, Hirschfeld gave up 2 earned runs on 3 walks and a hit (a homerun, actually) while striking out 3.  That’s just bad enough to consider the week ugly rather than merely bad, in my book.  For the season, Hirschfeld at least managed to drop his ERA below 10.00 (it’s sitting at 9.95), and his WHIP is now sitting at 1.82.  His 14-6 K-BB ratio in 12.2 innings remains a strong positive for him, at least.

Mike McCardell – SP

I still don’t know the story on McCardell, but it appears even more likely that he’s simply been shut down.  He hasn’t pitched since October, and with just 4 games left to play I’m assuming he’s done.  Again, by default, I’m scoring his DNP as Ugly.

Minor League Transactions

The newest list of minor league transactions has been released, courtesy of Baseball America.  It’s a short list, but interesting:  the Twins have released C Jeff Christy and OF Ozzie Lewis.  Here are some thoughts:

Jeff Christy – C – Rochester Red Wings

Christy was drafted out of the University of Nebraska in the 6th round of the 2006 draft, and rose relatively quickly through the ranks to reach Rochester by 2008 for a partial season, with another stretch with the Red Wings in 2009.  He must be a reasonably good defensive catcher, because he sure wasn’t being promoted for his offense — Christy is a career .215/567 hitter.  With other young catchers in the system behind him and better prospects ahead of him, there wasn’t really any reason for the team to hang onto the former Cornhusker.  Since catchers always seem to be in demand, there may even be a chance for Christy to head to an organization that needs one and continue his minor league career.  The biggest problem for Christy in the Twins organization was that he just didn’t get a lot of playing time — just 138 AB’s in 2009 and and 164 in 2008 — so this release could actually be a positive for Christy if he can hook up with a club that will give him a chance to get in more games.  Unfortunately, his offensive track record probably means teams won’t be beating down his door, but we’ll see.

Ozzie Lewis – OF – Beloit Snappers

This one caught me off guard a little bit.  It’s not that Lewis was ever an elite prospect, because he really wasn’t — he was drafted in the 21st round of the 2007 draft out of Fresno State University, and almost by definition guys drafted that late don’t really qualify for “elite prospect” status.  Nonetheless, Lewis performed well enough in his first season in the organization (hitting .323/898 with 9 HR’s in 235 AB’s) to win MVP honors in the Appalachian League and earn himself some more serious interest from many fans, including myself.  Unfortunately, 2008 was a struggle, as Lewis transitioned into a role with the Snappers and hit just .218/627 in 211 AB’s.  It’s not necessarily unusual for players to struggle when moving to a full season professional league, so it wasn’t surprising that the Twins stuck Lewis back in Beloit this year to see if he could make the necessary adjustments.  To a degree, he did — he hit .272/701 in 401 AB’s.  Those numbers are all better than what he put up in 2008 — but stunningly, Lewis drew the same number of walks in 2008 and 2009 — 24 — despite having a whopping 190 more AB’s.  His strikeouts, meanwhile, jumped from 67 to 91 (actually a fairly substantial improvement in K/AB, but still not exactly great).  So, it seems the Twins were caught with a player who was making some kind of progress in Beloit, but probably not enough to justify a promotion to Ft. Myers.  With two years under his belt in Beloit already, the Twins probably just didn’t see the point of continuing a use a roster spot on Lewis with other young players ready to come up from Elizabethton and get playing time.

Continued Roster Tinkering

Geez, a guy goes to work for a few hours and comes home to discover that the Twins shed three more players from the 40-man roster and added another.  Busy day.  Most of you have probably seen the list of moves by now, but I’ll summarize with my thoughts:

1.) Armando Gabino was placed on outright waivers and claimed by the Baltimore Orioles.  This doesn’t upset me too much.  Gabino had another option year left, but it was pretty clear in his limited big league time this year that he’s not yet ready to contribute at the Major League level, and there are other players who the Twins should prioritize protecting on the roster.  I’m just fine with this.

2.) Justin Huber was outrighted to AAA, meaning that he cleared waivers.  Huber always seemed to me like the most obvious candidate for removal from the 40-man roster.  He was a late addition, not being added to the 40-man until his contract was purchased on September 8.  He’s out of options.  There’s no obvious place for him to play next year, and no track record of Major League performance to suggest that the Twins should have found room for him.  This move was pretty clearly coming, and now we’ll just have to see if Huber is convinced to come back to Rochester next year to give it another go.  My guess is he’ll be moving on.

3.) Orlando Cabrera filed for free agency.  This was inevitable, it was just a matter of timing.  I never understood why all eligible players don’t just file on the first day of the window, but I’m sure there’s a good reason.  Either that, or their agents are just lazy.  Anyway, with J.J. Hardy in the fold, there wasn’t any chance the Twins were going to negotiate a new deal with Cabrera, so that made it doubly inevitable, I suppose.

4.) In a somewhat surprising move, the Twins purchased the contract of RHP Juan Morillo from Rochester, placing him back on the 40-man roster and protecting him from the Rule 5 draft.  The Twins obviously liked what they saw from Morillo after he was claimed from the Rockies and sent to AAA early in the year.  I like this move, because if Morillo can control his heat (the numbers in Rochester were very promising in that regard), Morillo could be a useful addition to the bullpen in 2010.  He’s out of options, so Spring Training will be make or break for him.  Still, he’s worth protecting and I’m glad the Twins stuck him back on the roster.

Weekly Roundup — Arizona Fall League

Just 10 games remain in the AFL season, so the chance for players to impress Twins brass is dwindling.  Here, then, is the antepenultimate edition of the Arizona Fall League Weekly Roundup.

The Good

Steve Singleton – 2B/3B

Singleton got a chance to play some third base this week in addition to manning second as he has been for most of the AFL season.  Maybe he should stick to the middle infield, because his shot at third was accompanied by an 0-3 day at the plate, albeit with an RBI mixed in.  For the week, Singleton went 4-11 with a double, 3 runs scored, 2 RBI, and 2 K’s.  The man has been a run production machine, scoring or driving in a run in ten of his twelve AFL games.  He’s now hitting .300/742 on the season.

Alex Burnett – RP

Burnett had a quiet week last week, pitching two scoreless innings.  He backed it up this week with a similar performance, going 2 more scoreless innings with 2 BB’s and 2 K’s.  He’s dropped his season ERA to 4.05 and now has a WHIP of 1.65 in 6.2 innings of work.  His 6-7 K-BB ratio is not what you’d normally be looking for, but 4 straight scoreless innings of work is still very nice.

Steven Hirschfeld – P

Hirschfeld actually got a three inning start this week, and made the most of it by giving up just one hit and striking out two.  His season numbers are still awful – 11.17 ERA/1.97 WHIP in 9.2 innings — but his 11-3 K-BB ratio is encouraging, as is this week’s outstanding performance.  It would be great if he could finish up the AFL season on a high note.

The Bad

Rene Tosoni – OF

Tosoni went 4-18 this week while striking out 4 times.  That’s not a terrible line, but it does fall on the “bad” side of the “good”/”bad” divide.  Two RBI and 2 runs scored provided some run production for Mesa.  He now has a .245/728 for the season.

Spencer Steedley – RP

This was a tough on for me.  Steedley’s first outing of the week was bad, as he gave up a run in an inning of work off of 2 hits and 2 walks.  His second outing was quite good — 2 scoreless innings, 2 hits, and 2 K’s.  I thought about emphasizing the more recent positive outing and putting him in the “Good” category, but for the week he still had a 2.00 WHIP in 3 innings of work, and that was enough to push me into classifying his week here.  His season numbers improved a bit, but a 5.00 ERA/2.56 WHIP/6-12 K-BB in 9 innings of work is not a line that he, or the Twins, will be happy with.

The Ugly

Chris Parmelee – 1B

After a few very nice weeks in a row, Parmelee cooled off a bit this week and turned in a 2-12 performance with 4 K’s.  He did both score and drive in a run, and walked a couple of times (and he tripled!), but that’s not enough to bump this sub-Mendoza line week into a better category.  For the season, he’s hitting .245/910.

Mike McCardell – SP

Not sure if there’s a story behind it or not, but McCardell didn’t pitch this week, and in fact hasn’t appeared in a game since his disastrous start on October 26.  It’s possible that he’s been shut down for the remainder of the AFL season; teams are usually pretty careful with young arms at this time of the year.  Whatever the cause, not playing gets you an automatic “Ugly.”  Yep, I make the rules.  Yep, they’re arbitrary.

Cuddyer Sticks Around

It’s been a busy week for Twins GM Bill Smith, what with outrighting Brian Buscher and trading Carlos Gomez for J.J. Hardy.  Today, Smith added to the tally of moves by picking up Michael Cuddyer’s $10.5 million 2011 option.  From what I’ve seen on the Star Tribune, Twins fans seem to be in favor on the move.  ESPN’s Rob Neyer has a different view, arguing that Cuddyer is entering his declining years and is worth several million less per year than the Twins will be giving him in 2010 and 2011.

Call me a homer, but my vote is with the Twins on this one.  It’s one thing to look at Cuddyer’s numbers and conclude that he’s being overpaid (which, at $10.5 million in the new baseball economy, is true).  It’s quite another to argue that the Twins should have declined his option.  There are several reasons why I think picking up the option was important:

1. Cuddyer may be replaceable on paper, but how many right fielders could make a pretty seamless transition to replace an All-Star caliber first baseman while improving at the plate?  Additionally, while there may be some players available on the market who would be cheaper and produce at the same level, there’s no guarantee that they would sign with the Twins.  Cuddyer was in the fold already, and the Twins could guarantee (barring injuries of course) that they could put him in uniform and get him on the field.  They can’t do that with a player targeted in free agency.
2. Some fella named Joe Mauer might not have taken very kindly to the perceived dismantling of the core group of Twins players.  Of course, this was an option for 2011, not 2010, so it wouldn’t be a straight-up dismantling.  Demonstrating loyalty, however, would seem to be a good idea right now.  This was a good way to show Mauer that the Twins aren’t going to nickle-and-dime players going forward.
3. The fact that Cuddyer would still be on the payroll in 2010 also probably played a role in this decision.  Cuddyer said that he wouldn’t let the decision affect his play in 2010, but how could he guarantee that?  I know if I were in his shoes I would’ve been upset to have an option declined and have to continue working for my employer.  There’s something inherently unfriendly (intended or not) in declining an option.  Such a move could possibly have motivated Cuddyer to play better in 2010, since he’d be in a free agent year — but to me it’s better to keep Cuddyer happy and keep relations friendly.  Oh yeah — the Twins need to avoid putting themselves in this position by agreeing to options that need to be picked up or bought out a year in advance.

I genuinely like this move overall, and I’m hopeful that a healthy Cuddyer will continue to produce like he did this year.  If Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddyer can all get on the same page while getting occasional help from guys like J.J. Hardy and Delmon Young, the Twins could have the makings of a very nice 2010 offense for the new ballpark.  So far, I’m pretty happy with Bill Smith’s off-season.  I’m excited to see what he’ll do with the starting rotation and third base.