Polanco signs with Phillies

Twins fans can scratch Placido Polanco from their wish list; the AL Gold Glove at second base signed a three-year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday.

He'll play third base for the Phillies, which might seem a waste of a Gold Glove winner until you realize that Chase Utley is better and younger.

The Phillies dumped Polanco in midseason 2005. The Phils had Utley at second and the immortal David Bell at third, and if they haven't regretted keeping Bell over Polanco since making the trade, they should have. I wonder if they'd have signed him if the GM who traded him was still there.

It's been an odd career for Polanco — a few years as a regular without a position in St. Louis, a couple more in Philadelphia — then he he got to Detroit, and the Tigers installed him at second base and the No. 2 slot in the order and told him to run with it. Which he did.

The Cardinals and Phillies saw him as a tweener — a bit too slow for second base, not enough power for third. The Tigers deserve credit for seeing that his reliability — 19 errors total in 4.5 seasons — outweighed his lack of speed.

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Speaking of the Tigers: Mack Avenue Tigers this week has a five-part series analyzing the general manager reign of Dave Dombrowski in Detroit. Twins fans with a "know thy enemy" inclination will find it of interest.

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Two former Twins infielders, Brian Buscher and Luis Rodriguez, signed minor league deals this week with the Cleveland Indians. I think both players can help the right manager as bench players — the right manager being one more inclined to platoons and matchups than Ron Gardenhire.

Whether Manny Acta is such a manager remains to be seen.

In-Crede-ble

The word Tuesday night about Joe Crede's back, twice surgically repaired, was vague but ominous: There have been post-surgical changes.

What those changes are isn't specified, but they can't be good. He wouldn't have gotten the MRI Tuesday had his back been flexible and pain free.

So: He's hurting, and the MRI indicates that the back structure is different than it was after the surgery.

I'm not surprised. As a man who has had a herniated disk, I have kept an eye on Crede, and I believed much of the season that his flexibility was limited. It was most noticeable on ground balls to his backhand side — he was frequently a tick late, and displaying body language that suggested he knew he should have reached the ball. That's the move, defensively, that puts the most twist on the back.

At risk of jumping to conclusions, I assume he's done for the season, maybe even done for his career.

The Twins, as I wrote in the Monday print column soon after Crede signed, have options. The Brian Buscher-Brendan Harris platoon the Twins used at third in the second half of 2008 figured last winter to be just as productive offensively as Crede — and, given how poorly Crede hit, might have been better at the dish.

As Plan Bs go, Buscher and Brendan isn't Bad.

But there's a Plan C that might tempt the Twins. Danny Valencia is supposed to inherit the third base job next spring. They might chose to hasten that timeline.

But I think Harris/Buscher makes more sense. Alexi Casilla appears to have secured the second base job (at least until his next brain cramp); combined with the presence of Orlando Cabrera at short, that makes Nick Punto the utility man, and makes it easy to use Harris and Buscher and, yes, Punto to cover third. Harris against left-handed starters, Buscher agaisnt right-handed starters, Punto for defense.

A less useful bench

The Twins sent Brian Buscher to Triple A Rochester on Saturday to make roster space for Orlando Cabrera, their new shortstop.

Follow me as I explain how this affects the in-game moves Ron Gardenhire has available.

Shortstop Cabrera is just that — a shortstop. He hasn’t played any other position since 2000.

Brendan Harris is a utility infielder deemed by his manager to be too inadequate defensively to play at second base.

Nick Punto and Alexi Casilla can play second or short, but neither has hit (whcih is why the Twins traded for Cabrera).

Buscher can hit, at least against righties — his on-base percentage as pinch hitter for his career is .500 — but he’s limited defensively to the infield corners.

Imagine that the Twins had demoted Casilla (again). Punto becomes the regular second baseman — but Gardenhire will be afraid to pinch-hit for him, because that would leave him with Harris playing second.

Instead, Buscher lost his roster spot, removing the best left-handed pinch-hitter. Gardenhire will be able to pinch hit for either Punto or Casilla, whoever starts at second, but probably less effectively, since the bench on most days now consists of Delmon Young (right handed), Harris, Mike Redmond and one of Punto and Casilla.

Gardenhire has gotten good mileage from Buscher and Jose Morales as pinch-hitters, but neither is now on the roster.

Notes, comments and a committment

The Twins tonight start a week-long West Coast swing. The reality of our current print deadlines is that we're unlikely to have game stories in the paper after the night games.

But I'll post commentary and a link to the AP game stories here after each of the night games, just as I did with last night's extra-inning affair.

*Guys who can make a living as pinch-hit specialists fascinate me. There have been quite a few of them in the 40 years that I've been following the game — Jose Morales (the first one, who played for the Twins in the Gene Mauch era), Terry Crowley, Lenny Harris, Mark Sweeney, Manny Mota come immediately to mind. Randy Bush milked an extra couple of years out of his career in the role.

Brian Buscher (above) looks to me like he has a chance to carve out such a niche. The man's career OBP as a pinch hitter is .500. Granted, it's only 32 plate appearances, but that's the kind of thing that can get a reputation. And reputation counts.

* A lot of contenders — including the Twins — had scouts at Roy Halladay's start Sunday. I'm guessing the Twins scout wasn't there to eyeball Doc. He was looking for bullpen arms. It wasn't a good day to see Toronto's relievers in action.

* A few weeks ago I suggested the Twins could target ground-ball machine Cla Meredith in their search for middle relief help. On Sunday the Padres traded him to Baltimore for a utility infield type named Oscar Salazar. Salazar appears to be a better hitter than the likes of Matt Tolbert and may well be a more valuable bargaining chip than any infield chip the Twins could reasonably offer. Still ...