Poll results and Alex Burnett

I should have mentioned in the previous post that the main reason Alex Burnett (above) was brought up rather than Anthony Slama, Ron Mahay or Kyle Waldrop is that Burnett is on the 40-man roster. The others are not.

Baseball America ranks Burnett as a better prospect than Slama anyway.

Burnett is a "smallish right-hander" (6 feet, 190 pounds) who came on last season with a move to the bullpen. Working in short stints, his velocity is around 93 mph with occasional gusts to 95. He also throws a straight change to lefties, who really struggled with him last season. (LH's hit just .150 off him in two levels, High A and Double A.)

Key sentence in BA's write-up: "Burnett will become a big league bullpen factor when he improves his breaking ball command."

It wouldn't hurt if he became a factor starting Monday night.

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Last week's poll was about how many games Michael Cuddyer will play in center field.

The consensus appears to be: Not many. Fifteen (38 percent) said less than five games; 13 (33 percent) said five to 14; seven (17 percent) said 15 to 24; and four (10 percent) said at least 25.

Twenty-five games would be almost one a week, and that's not going to happen. If Denard Span needs that much time off, the Twins will add a legitimate center fielder to their bench. I'm inclined, personally, to the less-than-five category.

New poll is up.