Notes, quotes and comment

To remain part of the Twins system.

I took note a while back of the number of minor league affiliates whose arrangements with the Twins were expiring after this season. One of them has apparently been settled; John Shipley of the Pioneer Press tweeted Wednesday that the New Britain (Conn.) RockCats and Twins have extended their "working agreement" through 2014.

New Britain is the Double A affiliate in the Eastern League, and there was, at the time of the original post, speculation that the new owners of the franchise were interested in hooking up with the Mets.

Rochester (Triple A) and Beloit (Low A) are also expiring affiliations.

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As far as I know, Brian Dinkelman is the only Twins farmhand involved in this bracket. I don't think he's got a chance.

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Jonathan Sanchez was designated for assignment Tuesday by Kansas City -- a status that means We don't know what we're going to do with him, but he's not playing for us anymore. They have nine more days in which to dispose of him.

If there's any team in need of power arms for the starting rotation, it's the Twins. Of course, if there's another, it's Kansas City, and they've seen quite enough of Sanchez. Still, Sanchez' record with San Francisco was solid enough to start some Twitter chatter about whether the Twins should pursue him.

I don't know why his walk rate, never good, has ballooned, or (probably more important) why his strikeout rate has cratered. And without answers to those questions, I'd pass on him. Certainly the Twins ought not pick up the remains of his $5.6 million contract.

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Trevor Plouffe hasn't homered in two weeks, but he hasn't had a hitless game this month and has only struck out eight times. He hasn't had a lot of multi-hit games  during the16-game hitting streak (Wednesday's was the fourth), and he's drawn only three walks, so the on-base percentage hasn't budged, the slugging percentage has actually dropped, and the batting average is only creeping up.

Still, the consistency is encouraging.

Twins drop two more players

Brian Dinkleman hit
.301 for the Twins but
just .243 for Rochester.

Last week, at the end of their organizational meeting, the Twins removed four players from their 40-man roster. On Thursday, they dropped two more, Brian Dinkleman and Phil Dumatrait.

Dinkleman's fate isn't a surprise -- in fact, I wonder why he wasn't lopped last week, with Jason Repko, Rene Rivera, Anthony Slama and Matt Tolbert. While Dinkleman hit .301 in his brief major league stint, it was an empty .301 -- just one extra-base hit, that a double. He's not a good enough hitter to justify playing in the outfield, not a good enough defender to justify playing at second base.

Dumatrait, on the other hand, is a guy I could imagine the Twins deciding to keep around. His ERA (3.92) wasn't all that bad, he was effective against lefty hitters and he never coughed up a lead.

Phil Dumatrait
would be eligible for
arbitration had he
remained on the
40-man roster.

But he's really not good, either -- 25 walks and 29 strikeouts in 41 innings -- and I find it encouraging that the Twins recognize that he's easily replaceable.

So the Twins now have 36 players on the 40-man roster. That number will decline some more soon, when the World Series is over and Michael Cuddyer and others officially become free agents. If the Twins chose not to exercise their option on Joe Nathan, they could enter November with as many as eight open spots on the 40-man roster.

Those slots won't be open long. The Twins will have to add a number of players now on minor league rosters to protect them from the Rule V draft. That action will probably come next month.

Contemplating Brian Dinkelman

Brian Dinkleman's major league average after Monday's
game was more than 140 points higher than his Triple A
average for the season.

Brian Dinkleman has nine hits in the Twins' last three games — 9-for-13, which is a fairly decent batting average. In his exceedingly brief time in the majors, he's hitting .386.

Even Ty Cobb wouldn't sneer at that batting average. Of course, it's only 44 at-bats. And .386 is also Dinkleman's slugging percentage. And he has just two walks to his credit, and they were both intentional.

We need not wonder if the 27-year-old is a legit .380 hitter. Nobody is. The real question is: Is he good enough to help a major league team?

I doubt it. His slash line in Triple A —pretty much two full seasons — is .255/.327/.353. Even maintaining those numbers in the major leagues would only work with high-caliber defense at a middle infield spot. Dinkleman does play second base — it was his initial position in the minors, and he's been seeing time there in the past week with the Twins — but if he were really a plus defender there the Twins wouldn't have made him primarily an outfielder at the higher levels.

He doesn't field well enough to play second in the majors. He doesn't hit enough to play a corner outfield in the majors. He's no shortstop, which detracts from his value as a utility infielder.

He's one of those guys — left-handed stick, makes contact — who'd have a better chance if teams still carried just 10 pitchers and there was no DH rule. I could see him carving out a career as a pinch-hitter/sixth infielder under those circumstances, especially if he finishes this season with a 353 average or something like that.

But those aren't the circumstances. Right or wrong, 21st Century managers prefer to have an extra arm to mop up waste innings than a pinch-hit option.

That's bad for a Brian Dinkelman, good for a Phil Dumatrait.

DL stuff (UPDATED)

Just a quick note about the Twins moves today: Jason Kubel and Jim Thome were put on the 15-day disabled list, with Ben Revere and Luke Hughes recalled. Revere is in the starting lineup today -- in right field, which is a lousy fit for his popgun throwing arm, but whatever.

Perhaps more interesting, on a day in which Joe Mauer caught three innings in extended spring training (his first such action since April), the Twins shifted Mauer to the 60-day disabled list. This (a) means he definitely won't be back with the big club until at least June 12; and (b) opens a spot on the 40-man roster.

Perhaps that slot is going to sit open until Tsuyoshi Nishioka's ready to come off the 60-day DL, and was opened now to squash any speculation that Mauer's nearly ready to return. Or maybe there's another move looming involving somebody not now on the 40-man roster, such as Kyle Waldrop, Carlos Guterriez or even Kyle Gibson.

Brian Dinkleman is
hitting .297/.373/.400
in his second year at
Triple-A.

Update: The 40-man slot was filled by Brian Dinkleman, a left-handed contract hitter with some second base experience who has been mainly playing outfield in recent seasons. Trevor Plouffe has been sent back to Rochester to make room on the 25-man roster.

Dinkleman has had a pattern of hitting better in his second season at a level. But even then, his numbers look good for a second baseman, not so good for a corner outfielder. I assume that his defense at second is deemed substandard, because a good defensive middle infielder is seldom moved to left field. 

It would have been easier to recall Rene Tosoni, who was already on the 40-man roster. The Twins now will have to clear two spots on the 40 when Nishioka and Mauer are ready to play. I assume they have targets in mind.

The non-roster outfielders

Continuing my obsession with the 25th spot on the Twins roster — specifically my belief, as described in the Monday print column, that the Twins need a true outfielder on the bench more than they need a second infielder:

Jacque Jones is not the only non-roster outfielder in major league camp. (Major league camp includes the 40 players on the roster and selected players with minor-league contracts. Most of the minor leaguers are down the street in the minor league complex, or will be when they report.)

Also invited: Ben Revere, the Twins' 2007 first-round draft pick; Rene Tosoni, MVP of the 2009 Futures Game; Juan Portes, who hit .297 in Double-A last season; Brian Dinkleman, who has spent most of his minor league career playing second base but started seeing time in left field last season; and Chris Parmelee, first round pick in 2006. (Dinkleman and Portes are the two on the left in the above photo, along with Jason Kubel, Denard Span and Delmon Young.)

Parmelee is a slow power hitter, splits his time between first base and an outfield corner, and hasn't cracked Double-A yet. He's not a candidate to play center field.

Dinkleman played in Double A last season, but his limited outfield experience has been in a corner as well. (He appears to hit well enough to be a possible 2B down the road; that the Twins are testing him as an outfielder suggests that they're not thrilled with his defense. That he was left off the 40 this winter and wasn't taken by another organization suggests the same.) Not a candidate.

Portes has bounced from position to position — second base, third base, all three outfield spots — and it's unclear from this distance how adept he is at any of them. As a hitter, he profiles as a reserve outfielder — a singles and doubles hitter, good average but not a lot of power — but whether he's a guy they want to play much in center, I doubt the Twins know. That's probably why he got an invite, so the coaching staff can form a judgment on his suitability. He's got a chance to be an injury callup this year.

Revere gets more pub than the rest of this crew put together, partly because he was a surprise pick in 2007, partly because he threatened to hit .400 in low A ball in 2008 (he ended a .379). He's a shrimp (listed at 5-8, 166) and the consensus is that he's never going to hit for power. He had just 19 extra-base hits last season in high A ball, and while the Fort Myers park saps power, that's not much. Were this a year from now, I'd figure him to be the front-runner for the reserve job. But he hasn't seen Double-A yet, and he's not making the big-league roster this spring — or probably at all this year.

Tosoni looks like a bit of a tweener — maybe not enough power to be a regular in an outfield corner, maybe not fast enough to be a full-time center fielder — certainly not in a system with Denard Span, Revere, Joe Benson and Aaron Hicks. Sounds like a fourth outfielder type to me. Played all season at Double-A, with more playing time than Portes. Turns 24 in July. He's from Canada, and last year was his first season playing anything resembling a full schedule.

If they go with a fourth outfielder from the players now in camp, I rank the likelihood Jones, Tosoni, and nobody. Everybody on that list got something to prove, and spring training may not prove anything.