Ex-Twins watch: Chris Colabello

Last year at this time, Chris Colabello was an emphatic factor in the Toronto Blue Jays lineup. He had had a productive season at the plate -- .321/.367/.521 -- but was being largely limited to a platoon role because his skill set as a hitter largely duplicated those of Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki, all of whom either had more defensive value or were better hitters or both, and at some point one has too many right-handed sluggers in the batting order.

But he mattered away in the 2015 postseason -- he hit a couple of homers, dominated the Texas pitching staff, and by the time the Royals knocked the Jays out had pretty much pushed aside Justin Smoak, the switch-hitting first baseman who was his platoon mate.

This year Colabello is not a postseason factor. He failed a PED test during spring training, and he had only 10 games in when the suspension hit -- 10 games in which he hit a dismal .069. After the suspension, Colabello was sent to the minors, and he hit .180/.248/.288 for Buffalo, which is more likely to get him released than recalled.

He never got back to Toronto, and wouldn't be eligible for the postseason anyway because of the PED suspension. He turns 33 later this month. Colabello has never been anybody's first choice for a major league job, and his future is not notably bright.

Notes, quotes and comment

John Ryan Murphy hasn't played since his disastrous game Sunday, but I thought I'd throw this statistical tidbit into the mix:

Murphy's catcher ERA -- the team ERA when he's behind the plate -- is 2.71. Kurt Suzuki's catcher ERA is 4.67.

There's a lot of noise in that stat, and not a lot of innings. But if that persists over time, it will suggest that he's doing something right behind the plate -- something that isn't real obvious.

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Walter Johnson might be the best pitcher in MLB history. Is Doc Hamann the worst ever? https://t.co/p8gt2uk8mT Good case for it.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) April 27, 2016

So I looked at the Doc Hamann page on Baseball Reference. Turns out he was from New Ulm. Another NUN -- New Ulm Native, as we used to call Terry Steinbach back in the day in the Free Press newsroom, because it was our practice to slip the local identifier into game stories in front of his name. ("New Ulm native Terry Steinbach doubled in two runs in the seventh inning ...)

And as Buster Olney suggests, Hamann wasn't very good: one game with the Cleveland Indians in 1922, in which he got no outs, walked three men, allowed three hits, hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and allowed six runs for an ERA of infinity. Which still makes him a better pitcher than me.

The BR page contains a link to a short bio of Hamann.

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Former Twin Chris Colabello tested positive for a steroid and has been suspended 80 games. Colabello says he didn't knowingly take a banned substance, and I'd like to believe him on that, but it ultimately doesn't matter.

Colabello was an easy guy to root for even when I doubted that the Twins had a use for him, and I'm sorry to see him get derailed like this.

Meanwhile, Reynoldo Rodriguez, a Triple A player for the Twins -- I saw him play in a spring training game in Fort Myers in early March -- got nailed as well. Eight games for him too. Last year he was the MVP for the Rochester Red Wings. This year, it's safe to say, not so much.

Addendum: Between the time I wrote the above and the time I got up, MLB announced that Dee Gordon, Miami's All-Star second baseman, had been suspended 80 games for PED use. The 1 a.m. hour Eastern time is an odd time to issue suspensions, but I don't run the commissioner's office.

Gordon, of course, is the brother of Twins shortstop prospect Nick Gordon (and son of former pitcher Tom "Flash" Gordon). Let's avoid the guilt-by-association thing here. I mean, one Thoma boy votes Republican, another votes Democratic and neither has any influence on the third.

Ex-Twins watch: Chris Colabello

Chris Colabello tags out Texas' Josh Hamilton in the
first inning Friday afternoon.

The Toronto Blue Jays could almost be described as "Twins Canada." The roster includes Ben Revere, who has played left field and led off in both playoff games; starting pitcher R.A. Dickey; bullpen arms Liam Hendriks and LaTroy Hawkins; and Chris Colabello, first baseman-outfielder and right-handed bat. All are former Twins.

Colabello is pushing 32 now. He's been a long time waiting for his shot, and his best opportunity with the Twins went awry in 2014 when he injured his thumb and tried to play through it. The Twins let him go, He landed with Toronto, made the roster out of spring training, and was playing a lot of outfield for the Jays when the Twins first saw them in May.

Colabello is miscast as an outfielder, and when the Jays acquired Revere from the Phillies in July Colabello lost most of that portion of his playing time. Revere and Colabello are pretty much opposite players. Revere is small, speedy, left-handed, a singles hitter; Colabello is big, slow, right-handed, a power threat. Playing Revere over Colabello is about the Jays needing his specific skill set.

Before the All-Star Game, Colabello had 221 plate appearances and hit .325/.371/.500, a very strong slash line. After the All-Star Game, his playing time fell off (139 PA) but his production did not (.315/.360/.551).

The Jays didn't have to reduce Colabello's playing time to get Revere into the lineup. They could have made him the first baseman. Instead he splits playing time with Justin Smoak, who hit .226/.299/.470. Even granting that Smoak is a better defensive first baseman, it's difficult to see that his glove makes up for the hitting difference.

But the core of the Jays lineup is heavily right handed. Josh Donaldson, Jose Batista, Edwin Encarncion, Troy Tulowitzki, Russell Martin -- all right handed. Smoak is a switch hitter, so he gives the Jays a left-handed stick with some power to balance out the right-handed sluggers. It's the skill set issue again. Colabello is a right-handed slugger on a team with a surplus of right-handed sluggers, and that limits him now to a platoon role.

The defense-offense trade off

The Monday print column grapples with a seeming oxymoron: The Twins improved their defense by sending their designated hitter to the minors.

Consider the Twins' opponent this weekend. Toronto played Chris Colabello, the erstwhile Twin, in left field all three games. The Jays know this is suboptimal, but Jose Bautista has been limited to the DH role by injury. The Jays would doubtless rather have Bautista in the outfield and Colabello either at DH or first base (with Edwin Encarnacion at DH), but they are working with what they have,

Colabello's bat helped the Jays beat the Twins on Friday night; he homered in the ninth off Glen Perkins to break a tie. On Sunday, Colabello's outfielding inadequacies cost the Jays three runs in a game they lost by one.

Win by the Colabello, lose by the Colabello. Certainly the Jays calculate that Colabello's bat -- and he has hit extremely well -- makes up for his fielding. The flip side of it is that his lack of range in left field adds to the stress on their pitching staff.

The Jays lead the American League in runs scored, and it isn't close. They're also, barely, last in runs allowed. They may be inclined to believe that's all on the pitching staff. It isn't.

Winter Meetings, Day One: Hall of Fame, Colabello

The Veterans Committee didn't come up with enough votes to put any of the 10 finalists from the "Golden Era" in the Hall of Fame. Tony Oliva (and Dick Allen) came one vote shy, Jim Kaat two,

I'm OK with this. I can make an argument for any of the 10, and I can make an argument against any of the 10. Well, maybe not against Minnie Minoso. He was at least twice the player Jim Rice was, and definitely the superior to at least a half-dozen other corner outfielders already enshrined.

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Joe Posnanski explains here why the Veterans Committee, at least in its current form, is doomed to failure.

The good news, I suppose (at least for "big Hall" supporters, those who want more inductees) is that the Hall keeps tinkering with the process. The bad news is, they've never really come up with a good process.

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Tony O. misses by one vote. Needed 12 of 16. God is dead.
— Patrick Reusse (@1500ESPN_Reusse) December 8, 2014

That is a popular opinion around the Twins, but it's based on emotion and proximity, not logic and analysis.

Worse sins are committed in Hall of Fame voting every winter by the writers -- Mr. Reusse among 'em. Oliva had a peak worthy of the Hall; he had done the heavy lifting. But there isn't enough there to make him more than a borderline selection. There are better choices for Cooperstown being bypassed every year by Reusse and his BBWAA colleagues.

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The Toronto Blue Jays claimed Chris Colabello on waivers Monday. This opens a spot on the Twins 40-man roster for either a free-agent signing or a Rule 5 pick later in the week.

Colabello is easy to root for, and I hope things go well for him. But there wasn't much of a role visible for him with Minnesota, with Joe Mauer and Kennys Vargas ahead of him at first base/DH and Josmil Pinto available to plug the DH job should somebody get hurt.

Notes, quotes and comments

Tough times for those of us needing our Twins fix: Rained out on Sunday, scheduled day off Monday, and a weather forecast that suggests it will be difficult to get the Dodgers series played.

(They probably will play the games anyway, because it's darn difficult to reschedule these interleague series — and why do the schedulemakers give the Twins home interleague series in April against teams like Miami and Los Angeles anyway?)

Let's poke around for stuff for today's post:

* The Twins' TV broadcast crew came in seventh in the Awful Announcing website's fan poll. That's considerably higher than I would have expected, and indeed, the writer found it odd:

This rating is a little puzzling, because many of the negative comments were directed towards the regular crew of (Dick) Bremer and (Bert) Blyleven, and most of the praise was devoted toward part-time analyst Tom Kelly.

I'm always disappointed when I'm working during a game for which TK's in the booth.  I don't know that a dozen games or so of Kelly's work balances out the dreck from Blyleven.

I find myself muting the TV more often than I used to — such as when Blyleven launches into his daily pitch count rant — and the overall lack of comprehension among the broadcasters (radio and TV) of where analytics are taking the game does the audience a disservice. Blyleven (and Dan Gladden on the radio side) really need to modernize their thinking, or at least understand what they're railing against.

* Peter Gammons wrote this piece on Chris Colabello. I recommend it not only because it's about a Twins player, but because it is so Gammons-esque: Overwritten and sentimental, with a lengthy extraneous Dylan quote stuck in the middle. Gammons has been a great baseball writer for decades, but he needs an editor.

* This chart has Trevor Plouffe seventh in the majors at hard-hit ball rate so far this year, a very good sign for the Twins third baseman.

Campaign reform

Chris Colabello, write-in
candidate.

Voting (or ballot-box stuffing) for the All-Star Game formally opened Friday, and with the game being held in Target Field this year, the Twins were heavily involved in the promotion of this non-event.

One of the more newsier items tweeted out of the Target Field press conference was the unsurprising news that neither Josmil Pinto nor Chris Colabello are on the ballot. This is unsurprising because the ballot's nominees are decided before the season began, and neither was expected to get this much playing time. It took injuries to Oswaldo Arcia and Josh Willingham to get Pinto and Colabello into the lineup.

Right now, Colabello leads the American League in RBIs (27) while bopping .318/.355/.523, and Pinto's .224 batting average is spiked with 16 walks for a .400 on-base percentage. But a month ago, it wasn't clear either would be on the major league roster, much less playing regularly.

I imagine that a write-in push for Colabello is coming. I'm not sure if it will be as an outfielder or as a DH. I do know the Twins aren't going to have their broadcasters urge us to write him in as a first baseman.

And a lot depends, too, on how Ron Gardenhire handles the lineup as Arcia and Willingham return. (Arcia is to begin a rehab assignment this weekend; Willingham is further away from playing.) There's no obvious candidate in the left field-right field-first base-designated hitter-catcher nexus to sit, but Arcia is a more important piece of the future than most of the current regulars.

Such problems have a way of working themselves out, and I don't imagine Gardenhire's losing any sleep over it yet.

Four games, one start for Kubel

Chris Colabello watches his home run fly Friday.

When Ron Gardenhire sat veteran Jason Kubel for the opener against Chris Sale, the Twins manager took pain to say he's not platooning the left handed hitter with Chris Colabello.

Kubel, Gardenhire insisted, "hangs in there" well against lefties. Kubel sat Monday's game out , Gardy said, because Sale is just an exceptionally tough lefty.

Well, yes, Sale is exceptional. But Kubel has 949 career plate appearances against left-handed pitchers, not all of them exceptional, in his major league career, and he has a slash line of .234/.304/.374 in those trips to the plate. That's not good enough to justify using him as a DH or (considering his defensive limitations) corner outfielder against southpaws.

Colabello started against Sale. Kubel started the second game, against a right-handed starter.

The White Sox used a lefty again on Thursday -- and Colabello played, and Kubel sat. Colabello had a big game (6 RBIs), and on Friday -- against a righty -- he started again (and hit a home run).

I do not expect Colabello to become the full-time DH, at least not this quickly. And given Gardenhire's well-established distaste for platoons, I still expect that Kubel will get far too many chances to flail and fail against the southpaws.

But even if Gardenhire does limit Kubel's exposure to left-handed pitching, we should not expect the manager to acknowledge that he's platooning. That would be OK; I'd rather have the manager platoon and pretend he isn't, than pretend he doesn't need to platoon at all.

Washed up on the bench

This catch (on March 18) near the
center field fence apparently convinced
Ron Gardenhire that career shortstop
Jason Bartlett can handle center field.

The Twins made three serious cuts Thursday. There's still one more to come — extra catcher Dan Rohlfing remains in camp — and the very real possibility that they'll pick up somebody on waivers, but they've essentially pared down to the Opening Day roster.

And what an odd bench this figures to be.

The Twins lost outfielder Alex Presley on waivers to the Houston Astros. They also saw first baseman-outfielder Chris Parmelee and left-handed pitcher Scott Diamond clear waivers.

The resulting bench: catcher Josmil Pinto; first baseman Chris Colabello; infielder Eduardo Escobar; and infielder Jason Bartlett.

There is no true fourth outfielder there. There are two shortstops, in Escobar and Bartlett, who are supposed to be "super utility men," although there's no real reason to believe either can hit enough to play. There are two right-handed bats of limited defensive value in Pinto and Colabello.

Is there a purpose to having a bench player who fits the traditional fourth outfielder role? Considering the extreme defensive limitations of the trio who figure to get the bulk of the playing time in the outfield corners (Josh Willingham, Oswaldo Arcia and Jason Kubel), having somebody who can pinch run and then track down a fly ball late in games might be handy.

The idea seems to be that Bartlett and Escobar can handle those chores. I know that Bartlett made a catch in center (photo above) earlier this month that drew a lot of comment at the time, with manager Ron Gardenhire sounding impressed, but I'm less than completely sold.

What I call The Cuddyer Principle holds that any right-handed major leaguer can at least pass at any non-battery position for a while without it being painfully obvious that he doesn't belong there. Gardenhire, I think, is proposing The Bartlett Corollary to The Cuddyer Principle: If you can play shortstop in the majors, you can play any position well. We'll see if Gardy actually uses one of those extra shortstops as a defensive sub in left or right.

Another thing to watch for is if Colabello has a role other than pinch-hitting. Gardenhire is platoon-adverse, but Kubel has never really hit left-handed pitching and is hardly likely to start now. Colabello makes the most sense on the roster as a DH against lefties.

The Twins will face one of the league's tougher lefties, Chris Sale, in the opener Monday in Chicago. Colabello should be in the lineup — and Kubel on the bench — against Sale. But that's exactly the kind of matchup move Gardenhire has habitually avoided.

Benches are, of course, made up of flawed players. Nobody's so deep that a Willie Mays winds up as the fourth outfielder or Derek Jeter as a utility infielder. I didn't expect the Twins to cut Presley or Parmelee, much less both, but in the abstract, I don't quarrel with either move; neither player figures to be a great loss.

The real issue is that the regular lineup figures to be so flawed, that there's plenty of room for aggressive bench use. Is this a bench Gardenhire will use? Given Gardenhire's established preferences, I'm not sure there IS a bench he'll use.

Minor league all-stars

Josmil Pinto
is the catcher on
Baseball America's
minor-league
all-star team.

The dead-tree edition of the Baseball America issue in which Byron Buxton was named minor league player of the year arrived in my mailbox this week. Buxton's honor was announced almost two weeks ago, so the cover story was hardly a shocker.

I was briefly surprised by the cover image, however — Buxton running the bases in the Twins' major league uniform. It must have been made during his one-day spring-training call up back in March.

The same issue includes BA's minor league all-star team from all levels — four Twins farmhands are among the nine position players — and its classification all-stars, selected from the six levels of minor league ball.

The four on the overall all-star team: Catcher Josmil Pinto, first baseman Chris Colabello, third baseman Miguel Sano and center fielder Buxton. That's a pretty impressive share of the roster, and it would be carping (if accurate) to note that none of them are pitchers. Yes, the Twins need pitchers, but there are plenty of holes in the lineup too.

Colabello is the one guy on the roster who isn't a prominent prospect. He's also by far the oldest player on either the first or second teams on BA's list. There's no question that he had a big year in Triple A — .352/.427/.639 — but major league pitchers have carved him up pretty well.

The Twins were well represented on the classification teams as well.

Triple A: Colabello, who was the Triple A player of the year.
Double A: Pinto
High A: Sano and Buxton, with Sano the High A player of the year.
Low A: Buxton and outfielder Adam Brett Walker, with Buxton the Low A player of the year.
Short-season: The Twins don't have a short-season affiliate.
Rookie: Shut out. (Kohl Stewart, the Twins' first round pick, didn't have enough innings to qualify).

And here I don't think it's unfair to note the lack of pitching on the list. BA is saying that on no level of the minors did the Twins have one of the four best starters or the best reliever. The Twins farm system had a very good year with position players, less so with pitchers.

Who's on first next year?

Justin Morneau looks at umpire C.B. Bucknor
after being called out on strikes.

The Monday print column expanded a bit on a post from last week about Joe Mauer and the possibility that his current concussion will hasten a position change for the Twins star.

But let's say Mauer remains the Twins primary catcher. What are the first base options for 2014?

Justin Morneau will be a free agent this winter. For all the trade speculation that surrounded the former MVP this summer, there really appears to have been limited interest in him elsewhere.

He's no longer a franchise centerpiece and doesn't belong in the middle of the order anymore, but ... he's probably more valuable to the Twins than he is to anybody else, he's put down roots in Minnesota, and the rise of the likes of Miguel Sano, Oswaldo Arcia, Eddie Rosario and Byron Buxton means the Twins may, as early as the middle of 2014, be in a position to move Morneau to a place in the bottom half of the lineup.

Current take: I'd say it's at least 50-50 that Morneau is the Twins first baseman next year.

Chris Parmelee, long the heir apparent at first base, was the regular right fielder early on but didn't hit. He was optioned out at the All-Star break, a move that surprised me more than it probably should have, and ... he hasn't hit in Rochester either (.225/.331/.355). It's the dismal slugging percentage that is most alarming. I really expected him to grab Triple A by the throat, as he did in 2012. That didn't happen.

Current take: I think Parmelee is out of options after this season. He may not get a September call-up. He certainly can't be prominent in the front office's plans for 2014.

Chris Colabello has bounced up and down between Minnesota and Rochester in the second half. The minor league veteran has dominated the International League but has been highly strikeout-prone in limited major-league at-bats.

Current take: I have difficulty imagining the Twins committing this offseason to Colabello as a regular. He has a better shot than Parmelee, but his best chance is as an injury replacement.

Jose Abreu is an intriguing notion, and probably the free agent first baseman with the most potential to pay off. He's a Cuban defector, 26, who has been a masher in the top league on the island. He's establishing residency in Haiti and his immigration status is far from settled, but the speculation is that someone will offer him a six-year, $60 million deal to play in the United States when he's cleared.

Current take: The Twins don't have a track record of pursuing big-bucks free agents, and they don't appear often in the "informed speculation" around Abreu. That kind of talk has focused on the likes of Texas, Boston and the Mets. But few thought Oakland would land Yoenis Cepedes, and few connected Cincinnati with Aroldis Chapman; the big-market teams haven't often splurged on the Cubans. The Twins have the budget room to make a $10 million-a-year commitment (especially with Morneau coming off the books); it's far from certain they have the gambler's mentality the move would take.

Conclusion

All of this hinges on Mauer. If he and the Twins want to keep him as a primary catcher, first base is there to be filled. If it's deemed time to move him, first base is his most likely destination, and everybody else is out of luck.

Doumit back, Colabello demoted, Herrmann and Ramirez stick

That Ryan Doumit would return to the active roster as soon as cleared to come off the concussion list was never in doubt.

That it was Chris Colabello who lost his spot was a bit of a surprise.

Colabello's overall numbers in his 96 plate appearances with the Twins aren't that impressive: a slash line of .221/.302/.372. But he'd gotten rolling of late; since Aug. 6, in a span of eight games and 25 official at-bats, he had hit .360/.500.640. And, probably not coincidentally, he had drawn seven walks while fanning just six times, a drastic improvement (in his whole 96 PAs, he has nine walks and 27 strikeouts, an ugly ratio).

So why did he get bounced back to Triple A? Let's examine the options.

Doug Bernier is the only infielder on the bench. He wasn't seriously at risk.

Chris Herrmann -- like Doumit a catcher-outfielder -- seemed a likely candidate. But the Twins obviously like him as a defensive catcher, and particularly as the battery mate to Andrew Albers, who has yet to allow a run or to throw a pitch to anybody other than Herrmann.

Wilkin Ramirez -- like Colabello a right-handed hitter -- is out of options. Sending him down would require exposing him to waivers and clearing him off the 40-man roster, and with only a couple of weeks to go before the active roster is expanded, that's something the front office didn't want to do.

I think the Twins overrate Ramirez as a defensive outfielder, but there's no real doubt that he's a better defensive outfielder than Colabello or Doumit (but probably not better than Herrmann.) Colabello is almost certainly the better hitter.

Colabello will be back in September when the roster limit is raised. He would probably have stuck now except for the roster flexibility factor.

Still, this decision, minor as it is, defies my rule of the priorities: 2013 matters less than 2014 and beyond. I can envision Colabello playing a significant role (as a first baseman or designated hitter) in future years, and the Twins would do well to find out more about him. Taking two weeks out of that opportunity may not materially affect the evaluation, but it doesn't help.

Late night: Twins 3, Mariners 2 (13 innings)

Chris Colabello launches his two-run homer in the
top of the 13th inning Friday night.

Box score here.

Game story here.

A couple of good games from a couple of guys who really needed something to go right for them.

Minor league slugger Chris Colabello -- a mere 5-for-37 in his brief major league career, all singles, entering the game -- hammered a two-run homer in the top of the 13th for the decisive runs.

And Scott Diamond, who came into the game with a 5.53 ERA, gave the Twins six innings of one-run ball. Ron Gardenhire had indicated in a radio interview earlier in the day that Diamond was running out of chances, but the lefty kept the Twins in the game.

Still, it's not difficult to spot the flaws in Diamond's outing. He faced 27 hitters and threw a first-pitch strike to exactly a third of them. He threw 57 strikes and 44 balls, not exactly a prime ratio. And he had just one strikeout in his six innings.

The big picture results were good for Diamond. The process, however, was not.

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Much of the pregame chatter on the Interwebs was about the Twins announcement that Joe Mauer, whose paternity leave expires today, would not report to the Twins in Seattle this weekend but will rejoin the squad on Tuesday when they start a home series against Kansas City.

I don't have a problem with this. Yes, the Twins are a better team with Mauer playing. But no one game, or two games, is going to make or break their season. They're obviously not making the playoffs. The Mauer twins were born about five weeks premature, and if it's worth it to him to forfeit a quarter of a million dollars in salary (pro-rated, his salary is a bit more than $125,000 a day) to spend today and Sunday with his wife and daughters, who am I to argue?

His absence gives Chris Herrmann a couple more days to get at-bats. I don't regard that as a terrible thing in the long haul.

Shaking up the roster

Oswaldo Arcia tries (and fails) to break his bat
after yet another strikeout.

The Twins go into the All-Star break with a two-game winning streak. They will come out of the break on Friday with a drastically different outfield.

The Twins optioned out three players after Sunday's win: outfielder Oswaldo Arcia, infielder Eduardo Escobar and first baseman/right fielder Chris Parmelee. Catcher/outfielder Chris Herrmann and infielder Doug Bernier were immediately named as call-ups; the third addition was not named, but is expected to be first baseman Chris Colabello, who is slated to play in the Triple A all-star game Wednesday.

It has been said here since early in the offseason that 2013 doesn't matter. All decisions should be made with the future as the priority. A good case can be made for two of the demotions on that basis, not so much the third.

Let's take the least important one first. Bernier, who has all of four major league at-bats, is a 33-year-old minor league veteran who is having, literally, his first good hitting season that didn't come in a notoriously good hitting environment. The only point to swapping out Escobar for him is giving the younger (24) Escobar a chance to play; he's had all of 13 at-bats this month.

There is, to be blunt, no question worth asking about the future of the Twins to which Bernier is a useful answer. Escobar might be a utility infielder of the Al Newman/Nick Punto ilk down the road; right now, Ron Gardenhire isn't playing him, so he's not developing. Bernier can sit on the bench as well as Escobar can.

The Arcia demotion brought immediate complaints on my Twitter feed, largely along the lines of: yeah, he's been awful for the past week, but so was Aaron Hicks for six weeks and they didn't send him down.

True, but: Hicks, during his horrendous April, was doing other things to help the team. He drew a few walks; he played better defense in center field than anybody else available to them; he ran the bases well in those few times he was on base. Arcia in a slump does nothing to help; this is the outfielder, remember, who fielded a foul fly with his face last week.

Chris Parmelee's natural position is first base,
but he's played just 66 innings there this season.

According to Baseball Info Systems's defensive metrics, Arcia is -17 in the plus-minus rating and -10 in runs saved. In contrast, Josh Willingham, widely recognized as a poor defensive outfielder, is -9 and -4 — in about 150 more innings.

Arcia on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday came to the plate 14 times and struck out 11 times. Throughout that stretch of futility, Gardenhire spoke publicly about how Arcia was trying to "hit an eight-run homer;" certainly the youngster was talked to about it; and he kept overswinging.

Arcia is a big part of the Twins' future. But he needs to do a better job of adjusting, and it may well be that he needs a reality check.

For me, the demotion of Parmelee is the bigger disappointment. Certainly his offense hasn't been what one desires from a first baseman-right fielder, and he hasn't gotten better (one hit and 12 strikeouts in his past 22 at-bats). Considering how he dominated the International League last year, I don't know what he's going to learn from this demotion.

I certainly would rather see Parmelee get at-bats in the majors than Clete Thomas. Parmelee may not turn out to be a regular on a contender; we know Thomas isn't.

Presumably the Twins intend to bring both Arcia and Parmelee back soon. Until then, the corner outfield spots will likely be manned by some combination of Ryan Doumit, Thomas and Herrmann. I don't think this is an upgrade.

Notes from the weekend

Chris Colabello plays first base on Saturday. The
indy-league veteran is going back to Triple A.

The Twins sent Chris Colabello back to Triple A Rochester after Sunday's game, with a corresponding move to add someone to the 25-man active roster coming on Tuesday (off day today).

The estimable Seth Stohs suggested on Twitter that the addition might be Deibinson Romero, a third baseman not currently on the 40-man roster. I think an easier solution to the riddle is Wilkin Ramirez coming off the seven-day concussion disabled list.

Colabello was just 2-for-15 with the big league team, both hits singles, with no walks. It's one of those things — if he were in the Brewers' organization, he'd likely get a chance at regular play (he's got to be a better hitter than the shortstops they're playing at first base), but with the Twins he's behind Justin Morneau and Chris Parmelee and Ryan Doumit at first base and designated hitter.

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Joe Mauer has caught just one game since the 14-inning affair on Tuesday in Milwaukee. Chris Herrmann caught on Wednesday, Doumit on Thursday, Mauer on Friday, Doumit on Saturday and Sunday.

The Twins have played 54 games, exactly one-third of the schedule, and Mauer has started 35 games behind the plate, which means he's on pace to catch 105 games — a good bit short of the 120 that Terry Ryan was talking about coming into the season.

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Scott Diamond's six shutout innings Sunday wasn't quite as impressive as it appears on first glance. A top-notch Diamond start has more than twice as many ground balls as fly balls. On Sunday (according to Baseball Reference) he had 9 FB and 8 GB.

He did tie his season highs for strikeouts and swinging strikes, with three and 10 respectively, and it was his first quality start since May 7. I don't know if he's solved what was wrong in his previous four starts or if Sunday's results are more because Seattle's lineup isn't particularly good.

Diamond's 4.66 ERA this year is considerably worse than his 3.58 in 2012, yet among the Twins pitchers with more than two starts, it's still the second best.

Plenty of roster moves, with more coming

Vance Worley leaves the field Wednesday — and heads
to Triple A Rochester.

I've spent the last few days writing about the talent on the Cedar Rapids Kernels, and it's certainly been more fun thinking about that team (hey, Byron Buxton hit a triple Wednesday!) than about the Twins.

Monday's post, written in a Cedar Rapids hotel room after an afternoon spent driving and listening to the Sunday game/rain delay, anticipated a coming roster shuffle.

Changes have come, and more will, because the active roster is a starting pitcher short.

Follow the bouncing changeup:

Pedro Hernandez demoted, Caleb Thielbar promoted. Fifth starter out, eighth reliever in. I've always expected the Twins to shuffle through fifth starters in search of somebody who might emerge; I didn't expect Hernandez to get his opportunity as early as he did. Thielbar quickly joined the ranks of overused mop-up men in the bullpen.

Trevor Plouffe took Dan Uggla's shin in the temple
Tuesday night while breaking up a double play.

Trevor Plouffe put on concussion list; Darin Mastroianni put on 60-day disabled list; Chris Colabello put on 40-man roster and on the 25-man roster. The Twins' recent history with concussions — Justin Morneau and Denard Span — has not been a happy one, and the sight of Plouffe taking a shin to the temple raised too many bad memories for Twins fans. Nobody really knows what to expect from concussions, so there's no point in me speculating about how long Plouffe may be out.

Colabello gives the Twins right-handed power, but he's a first baseman-DH, and as such an ill fit on the major league roster as constituted. If he remains, Chris Parmelee or Oswaldo Arcia are likely to get shipped back to Triple A. Third base figures to be handled by a combination of Jamey Carroll and Eduardo Escobar, neither of whom offers Plouffe's pop. I wrote about Mastroianni's status in the Monday post.

Vance Worley demoted, Sam Deduno to be promoted. Worley has gone from Opening Day starter to Triple A in less than two months, which is what a 7.21 ERA can do to a fellow. "The Vanimal" has been the biggest disappointment in a rotation that has been almost completely disappointing.

Deduno has been slated all week to fill Hernandez' rotation slot but hasn't been officially added to the roster yet. One aspect here is that the Twins need another spot on the 40-man roster as well. This may well be found by moving Tim Wood to the 60-day disabled list.

All this still leaves the Twins a starter short. Somebody has to take the ball in four days, when Worley's turn comes around again. My guess: Kyle Gibson. It might have been Gibson for Friday's game except that they don't want to debut him against Detroit.

Trimming the non-roster guys and other notes

Shairon Martis, who
is still playing in the
World Baseball Classic
for the Netherlands,
was one of seven
players reassigned
Sunday to minor
league camp.

The Twins bounced seven non-roster invitees from major league camp Sunday.

Only two of the seven — pitcher Deolis Guerra and first baseman Chris Colabello — ever had even dark horse status for making the 25-man roster, so Sunday's moves simply thinned the crowd from the clubhouse. The contenders for major league duty in April were essentially unaffected.

Guerra's chances of making the roster, unlikely to begin with, vanished when he was found to have a blood clot in his pitching shoulder. For a while he was in intensive care, a sign of how serious such a clot is. On Friday he had a rib removed to free up space for the artery involved, and he should be ready to pitch again sometime this summer.

As I said when the diagnosis was announced: It's a serious, even life-threatening, condition, if unchecked, and now that it's been caught, it's not career-threatening. That seems an odd juxtaposition, but it's nevertheless true.

Colabello's reassignment does narrow the field a bit for the bench hitter job. The primary candidates for that job — assuming it exists when the Opening Day roster is set — now in camp would appear to be first baseman/catcher Jeff Clement and outfielders Brandon Boggs and Wilkin Ramirez, all non-roster guys.

I'm not sure any of them are better fits for the pinch-hitting/backup DH role than Colabello, which leads me to suspect that the front office is going to be eying the waiver wire hard for a hitter these next two weeks.

---

Scott Diamond is to make his first game appearance of the spring today in a minor league game, and he is apparently on track for a mid-April return to the rotation — which, by implication, means he figures to open the year on the disabled list.

Ditto Anthony Swarzak, whose marginal candidacy for a rotation job cracked with his ribs a few weeks ago. Ron Gardenhire was quoted over the weekend as saying his long man had to be stretched out to five innings, and there isn't time for Swarzak to do that before the April 1 opener.

Five innings? That's a typical start for Sam Deduno or Kevin Correia. I doubt Gardy's ever used a reliever for five innings.

DLing Diamond and Swarzak does figure to postpone a couple of roster decisions. Swarzak is among a handful of use-or-lose guys in the bullpen field (along with Tim Wood, Ryan Pressly and Josh Roenicke) who would have to clear waivers to be kept in the minors.

The WBC and the Twins roster

Sam Deduno celebrates getting out of a first-inning jam
Thursday against Team USA. He did walk in a run in that frame,
but that was all he gave up in four innings.

Sam Deduno is having a whale of a World Baseball Classic: Two starts for the undefeated Dominican Republic, eight innings, 12 strikeouts, two walks and just one run allowed.

It was easy to discount the first outing, since that came against Spain. But Thursday night he gave Team USA fits, and that is a much more imposing lineup.

I don't know that his WBC exploits are helping him win one of the spots in the Twins rotation, however. As I said here after his Spain game, he's a non-roster guy who slotted in no higher than eighth on the Twins starting pitching depth chart entering camp.

Even with Kyle Gibson demoted (more on that later) and Scott Diamond possibly headed to the disabled list for the season's start, Deduno still ranks behind Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey, Vance Worley (three sure pieces of the rotation given continued health) and Cole De Vries and Liam Hendriks, who have both been better in exhibition games than the first three.

It's also worth noting that the same pitch-count issues that made Deduno a master of the short start in his major league stint showed against Team USA. He threw 80 pitches in four innings — 20 pitches an inning. That's a problem. Nobody, including the Twins, should be eager to turn over a rotation spot to a guy who struggles to go six innings.

Personally, I'd much rather give the opportunity to Deduno than Correia, but the Twins have invested $10 million in the latter.

---

Kyle Gibson was
optioned out on
Thursday.

Gibson's not involved in the WBC, but since I mentioned his demotion, a quick word on the topic:

I'm not surprised Gibson didn't make the roster, and it has nothing to do with holding back his service time. He's struggled with his command this spring, which is not unusual for Tommy John patients. Velocity and movement come back first; location often lags.

He's still a vital piece of the puzzle. He's just not going to be put into place next month.

---

This may fall into the category of reading too much into developments, but ...

The Twins have signed Curt Smith, the first baseman for the Dutch team, to a minor league contract. Smith is a 26-year-old right-hander from Curacao — much of the Dutch squad is from the Caribbean — who spent three seasons in the Cardinals system, one in independent ball and one in the Marlins system. He's had a couple years in Double-A.

Not a real hot prospect, but he's had a strong showing in the World Baseball Classic.

So has Chris Colabello, another right-handed hitting first baseman with an indy league background. Colabello led Team Italy in homers (2), RBI (7), and total bases (12) while hitting .333 in Italy's five games.

Colabello is a dark-horse candidate for the major-league roster as the Twins consider carrying a pinch-hitter on their bench. Signing Smith adds some first-base depth to the upper levels of the system and makes it a bit easier to promote Colabello.

Easier, but hardly certain.

Do the Twins need a pinch-hit specialist?

Chris Colabello
hit .284/.358/.478
in his first season
in the affiliated
minors last year.

For most of 2012, the Twins carried three catchers, two of whom were generally in the starting lineup. Joe Mauer had about half his playing time behind the dish (72 starts) and split the rest between first base (30 starts) and designated hitter (42 starts); Ryan Doumit started 56 games at catcher, 48 at DH, 16 in left field and six in right field; Drew Butera started 32 games at catcher; and Chris Herrmann picked up the other two catcher starts.

The primary reason for carrying the third catcher was the 90 games — a bit more than half the season — of DH duties for Mauer and Doumit. Catcher is a highly specialized defensive position, and managers are loathe to be without one on the bench in case of injury. While a DH can take the field, the result is that the pitchers would have to hit for the remainder of the game.

Mauer, at least in theory, is to catch more this year, and if that does occur, Doumit is likely to get a heavier share of the DH duties. In which case the basic motivation for granting a roster spot to Butera remains intact, even though the playing time would diminish.

But Ron Gardenhire said last week that he's not committed to carrying three catchers, and that he wants to have a pinch-hitting threat on his bench this year — probably thinking in terms of hitting for Pedro Florimon, the front runner for the shortstop job.

This line of thought, coupled with Jim Thome's public appeal for a job, has a goodly portion of the Twins twitterverse hoping for Thome's return. I'm not in favor; I think Thome's about done, and even if he isn't, he's not a particularly good fit for the Twins roster.

Thome's tried being a pinch-hit specialist a couple of times for National League teams, and has found he needs a steady dose of at-bats. Using him as a DH would necessarily take at-bats away from one of the Doumit-Chris Parmelee-Mauer-Justin Morneau-Josh Willingham collection of catchers/first basemen/corner outfielders. While it's not a bad idea to spell Doumit (and perhaps Parmelee) against left-handed pitchers, Thome is not the guy to do that with.

If the Twins do forego a third catcher in order to carry a bench bat, better that it be a right-handed hitter. I don't know that they have that guy in camp — maybe non-roster invitee Chris Colabello, a 29-year-old refugee from an independent league who had a big season with the Twins Double A club last year. Colabello will be leaving camp soon to play for Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic, but he's gotten a couple of notable hits in the early exhibition games.

If Colabello, or someone of his right-handed ilk, wins the roster spot, he could get his "stay-sharp" at-bats against lefties and, at least in theory, improve the lineup by limiting Doumit's right-handed at-bats.

Gardenhire has shown little concern over the years about maximizing the platoon advantage with his hitters, and would probably prefer Thome to Colabello (or any right-handed hitter). That scenario appears to me a case in which the front office — meaning general manager Terry Ryan — needs to protect Gardenhire from himself.