#OldFriends (Infielders)

The Twins traded Eduardo Nunez to the Giants soon after he made the All-Star team in 2016. He was traded in midseason by the Giants to the Red Sox last year and is likely to be a free agent after the World Series. There is a team option, but I suspect the Red Sox will figure they can find a bench alternative they like more.

It's been a weird year for Nunez. He hasn't played all that well. His OPS+, a rough measurement of how productive his season was at the plate, was a career low, and his fielding has always been deemed subpar. But he still got more than 500 plate appearances for a 108-win team, so he couldn't have been holding the Red Sox back that much.

Alex Cora didn't fit the right-handed Nunez into the starting lineup against the left-handed Clayton Kershaw. He played the left-handed hitting Rafael Devers at third and right-handed Ian Kinsler at second. Kershaw was pulled in the fifth, and the Dodgers didn't use a lefty again until the seventh, when Alex Wood entered to face Devers with two on.

Except, as you probably know, Nunez pinch-hit and clubbed a three-run homer to break the game open.

Had Nunez started at third, it might have been Devers pinch-hitting for him in the seventh, but against a righty. Or, possibly, Devers might have replaced Nunez sooner, and the pinch-hit matchup might have disappeared.

Not a bad way to make his World Series debut.

---

Brian Dozier, seldom seen in the postseason for the Dodgers, was not only in the starting lineup for L.A. in Game One, he was the leadoff man. He drew a walk, he scored a run and he was unable to turn a critical double play pivot in the fifth inning.

The Dodgers obviously sought to load their lineup with righties against Chris Sale. They could have had someone like Chris Taylor, who led off for them throughout last year's postseason run, in the leadoff spot. I wonder if the fact that Dozier has three career homers off Sale entered into the decision to put him in the maximum at-bat spot.

I would think that the Dodgers analytics department is sharp enough to know that batter-pitcher matchup numbers aren't a reliable indicator. Dozier isn't the same hitter in October 2018 that he was when he hit those homers. And Sale probably isn't the same pticher right now, either.

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Finally, a former Twins infielder who isn't involved in this year's Fall Classic. Eduardo Escobar reupped Monday with the Arizona Diamondbacks -- three years, $21 million.

That feels a bit light to me, but Escobar probably didn't want to get frozen out in the marketplace, as happened to a number of veteran free agents last winter.

The MLB.com story on the signing says the D'backs don't have a specific position for Escobar right now, but his versatility gives them a variety of alternatives as they remake their roster.

Here's the thing: He's not quite as versatile as they apparently think. Age -- he turns 30 this winter -- has made him less playable at shortstop. His outfield experiences were rough enough that the Twins quit trying that pretty quickly. And supposedly he's not comfortable playing second base, although that might be his second-best fit (behind third base).

I had hoped to see Escobar return to the Twins, but he never actually reached the free agent market. 

Pic of the Week

Eduardo Nunez of the Boston Red Sox celebrates
his inside-the-park homer Thursday.

Not a bad way to open the season at all.

Pic of the Week

Former Twins infielder Eduardo Nunez, now with the
Red Sox, is covered with powder dumped on him after
he drove in the winning run on Saturday, July 29.

This is the second year in a row that Eduardo Nunez got traded in a deadline deal, which is why he's now with Boston.

He is part of what has turned into a long trade tree for the Twins:

In 1999 the Twins took Travis Bowyer in the 20th round; in 2001 they took pitcher Scott Tyler in the second round (a draft better remembered for the first round pick, Joe Mauer). In December 2005 they swapped those two pitchers to the Marlins for second baseman Luis Castillo, who was the leadoff man for the memorable 2006 Twins.

At the trading deadline in 2007 the Twins moved Castillo to the Mets for two minor leaguers. One didn't make it to the majors, but the other was Drew Butera. Butera was traded at the deadline in 2013 to the Dodgers for a minor league lefty named Miguel Sulbaran,

The next spring, the Twins traded Sulbaran to the Yankees for Nunez. He stuck with the Twins until the deadline last year, when they traded him to the Giants for another minor league lefty -- and that lefty, Adalberto Mejia, is now in the Twins starting rotation.

As for how Nunez has done since the Red Sox got him, let us hear from a member of the Red Sox front office:

Where do I go to bid on the movie rights for the Eduardo Nunez story?

— Bill James Online (@billjamesonline) August 5, 2017

A trade tree

Follow the bouncing roster spot:

In 1999 the Twins drafted right handed pitcher Travis Bowyer in the 20th round. In 2001 they drafted Scott Tyler, also a right-handed pitcher, in the second round. Tyler never got above Double A, but Bowyer reached the majors for eight appearances in 2005.

The Twins traded the two after the 2005 season to the then-Florida Marlins for veteran second baseman Luis Castillo. Castillo was one of the "Piranhas" in 2006; in 2007, with the team out of contention and Castillo approaching free agency, the Twins shipped him to the New York Mets for two minor leaguers, outfielder Dustin Martin and catcher Drew Butera.

Martin is still active, playing this year in the Mexican League, but he has not reached the majors. Butera caught for the Twins 2010-13, then was traded to the Dodgers in a deadline deal for Miguel Sulbaran, a left-handed minor league pitcher.

The following spring, 2014, acting general manager Rob Antony (filling in while Terry Ryan recovered from his cancer treatment) traded Sulbaran to the Yankees for Eduardo Nunez. Sulbaran reached Triple A last year but has not appeared in a game at any level for any team this season.

Nunez, as we know, was a reserve player for the Twins in 2014 and 2015 before emerging as a superutility regular this year, starting games at shortstop, third base and second base and gaining the Twins' All-Star roster spot. As we also know, he was traded Thursday night to the Giants (Antony again) for Adalberto Mejia, a left-handed minor league pitcher.

And the future will tell what Mejia will do -- or be turned into.

This has not been a highly productive trade tree. The Twins have gotten a little more than two seasons of leadoff hitting (Castillo in 2006 and more than half of 2007 plus Nunez this year) and a handful of bench seasons (Butera and Nunez). But it's been more than 17 years since the Twins drafted Bowyer, and that move is still faintly echoing in the system.

The Nunez trade

Eduardo Nunez just gained
20.5 games in the standings
going from the Twins to
the first-place Giants.

Rob Antony pulled the trigger on a trade Thursday night, shipping the Twins' token All Star, Eduardo Nunez, to the San Francisco Giants for Triple A lefty Adalberto Mejia.

Mejia is 23. Baseball America lists him as No. 91 in its midseason prospect ranking, No. 5 in the Giants organization. That's a pretty decent return for a 30-year-old whose breakthrough season seemed to be decaying even as the Twins shopped him around.

Mejia is, right now, rotation depth. He projects, apparently, as a back-of-the-rotation guy, and there's genuine value in that. He may or may not be in the majors by September (he opened 2016 in Double A), but he might be. If nothing else, he further frees up Antony to deal one or more of the current major league starters. 

Meanwhile, Jorge Polanco is getting called up to take Nunez' roster spot. I'd like to see him get regular playing time, but ... he's been playing second base in Rochester, and that makes sense because that's his best position, and that's Brian Dozier's spot. The only game Polanco's played at short in 2016, it appears, was with the Twins. We'll see what the Twins have in mind for Polanco, but I suspect that trading Nunez mainly opens up playing time for Eduardo Escobar.

The Giants, whose lead over the Dodgers in the NL West has slid to two games, just brought second baseman Joe Panik off the disabled list, but third baseman Matt Duffy is still on the shelf. The plan is for Nunez to fill in for Duffy until his return, then be a utility man.

Eduardo Nunez, Ned Yost and second base

Eduardo Nunez turns two over the sliding Paul
Goldschmidt in the ninth inning.

Eduardo Nunez, the Twins' token All-Star, didn't get an at-bat Tuesday night in San Diego, but he did serve as the pivot man on the game-ending double play.

One selling point for Nunez to be the Twins selection for the AL roster was his versatility. Even with the bloated rosters, the manager are encouraged from on high to have at least one multi-position guy. For the American League this year, that was Nunez.

That he played second base in his limited action Tuesday was ... interesting. He's played five games at second base this year, starting four of them, for a total of 32 innings. That's a fraction of his playing time at third base (27 starts) and shortstop (38).

But second base is where Ned Yost put him Tuesday. And ... well, I'm engaging in pure speculation here, but Yost's team released its "regular" second baseman (Omar Infante) a couple weeks ago. Might Yost have put Nunez there out of his need in his day job with the Kansas City Royals? Might the Royals come a-calling on Terry Ryan this month with the intent of acquiring Nunez for second base?

We'll see,

Contemplating the shortstop situation

Danny Santana turns a double play in Kansas City.
Despite the Twins' issues at shortstop, they are among
the American League leaders at turning two.

Here be uncertainty and doubt.

Paul Molitor has started four different shortstops so far, which by itself doesn't signify much. He's started five different third basemen (Trevor Plouffe, Eduardo Escobar, Eduardo Nunez, Doug Bernier and Miguel Sano), but there's no question that Plouffe is the regular. (The other four have a total of eight starts.)

Short is another matter. Danny Santana made his 56th start there on Friday, but he's also had a brief demotion to Triple A. Escobar, the more-or-less regular last season, got a brief run there (17 starts); of late Nunez has been Molitor's choice if Santana isn't in the lineup. (The fourth shortstop, Jorge Polanco, was a one-day callup.)

Molitor and his bosses seem determined to find a regular shortstop in Santana, and Santana's not really cooperating with the effort. His slash line (.213/.235/.287 entering Friday's game) was second-worst in the AL among players with at least 100 plate appearances, and his 13 errors are the third most in the league at the position.

I don't really understand the reluctance to give Escobar a sustained run there again. He led the league's regular shortstops in OPS last season, and was by all measurements at least a league-average glove at the position. He may not have the athletic gifts of Santana, but he isn't an embarrassment at the position. (I will note, however, that in his limited playing time this year the double plays have been less frequently turned.)

Molitor seems more interested in using Escobar as a multi-position semi-regular, the sort of superutility guy that Ron Gardenhire talked a lot about but never really embraced in practice. As I've said before, that kind of player has to have a decent bat. While Escobar isn't hitting as well this season as last, he does have a better slugging percentage than six of the Twins' nine "regulars" as listed by Baseball Reference.

Nunez has hit impressively this year -- Molitor has picked his spots well, with a focus on pitting Nunez against pitchers with velocity -- but his defensive reputation is exceedingly poor. I can't see him getting everyday duty, particularly at a defense-first position.

As for Polanco: The prospect has moved up to Triple A, and was charged with six errors in his first six games at that level. I think second base is his destination; even if he does have a major league future at short, that does nothing for the Twins present.

Polanco's presence in Rochester may signal a determination to keep Santana in the majors. Putting both of them at Triple A would mean playing one of them at second base, and the Twins probably want to see both of them playing shortstop, partly for developmental reasons and partly because they aren't in need of a second baseman.

Notes, quotes and comment

Eduardo Nunez got his
10th double of the season
Friday night and is now
hitting .306.

Eduardo Nunez has now started four straight games at shortstop. The Twins have won three of those games, which should not be inferred as cause-and-effect.

Nunez long ago convinced almost everybody that he lacks the skills to play shortstop in the major leagues. I presume that Paul Molitor's sudden reliance on him speaks to the continuing offensive struggles of Eduardo Escobar.

And I further expect that soon enough Nunez will play his way off the shortstop job. At which point the Twins will either bring back Danny Santana or give Jorge Polanco a trial.

Nunez has his uses as a reserve player. Molitor has been adept at finding at-bats that play to his perceived strength of hitting velocity. I doubt Nunez is going to emerge as a regular at any position, much less one as defensively demanding as shortstop.

---

The Twins released Jordan Schafer, which shouldn't be a surprise. As I said earlier this week, the Twins have too many outfielders with more worthy demands for playing time.

Schafer did a good job for the Twins last year, but even this his .707 OPS merely made him a league average hitter, and it was vastly out of step with his previous major league record. He was miscast at the start of this season as the primary center fielder. That he was hampered by injury didn't help matters.

His release opens a spot on the 40-man roster, which will presumably be filled in a few weeks by Ervin Santana.

---

The Twins announced Friday that they have signed 20 of their 40 draft picks. Three of their picks in the first 10 rounds are still unsigned, but that's not alarming. Yet.

The roster moves to come

The Twins optioned out left-handed reliever Caleb Thielbar on Wednesday, which appears to settle the 12-man pitching staff.

Today we can expect the official addition of outfielder Shane Robinson to the 40-man roster. This has been an apparent move for a few days, and I assume the Twins have put it off to his opt-out date for two reasons:

• to cover themselves in case of injury (an injured Robinson not on the 40 wouldn't go on the major league disabled list);
• just in case some other team making roster cuts exposes a right-handed hitting outfielder the Twins like more than "Sugar Shane."

Beyond that, what? Two other non-roster invitees remain in camp, catcher Eric Fryer and infielder Doug Bernier; I don't see either making the Opening Day roster. Two of the trio of (alphabetically) Chris Herrmann, Eduardo Nunez and Josmil Pinto figure to be on the active roster. Pinto's health status after his concussion plays a role in that decision, as does the comfort level Paul Molitor has in Eduardo Escobar as an outfield reserve.

I see more possibilities for the future with Herrmann and Pinto than with Nunez, but given the Twins' habitual preference for mediocre veterans, I suspect Nunez will stick.

One other very slight possibility to mention. USA Today this week ran their version of the "David Ortiz sees himself in Kennys Vargas" story, and in the process mentioned something I hadn't seen from the beat writers. (Maybe I missed it.) Supposedly Vargas reported at 290 pounds, and the Twins want him at 275 max. He was, according to the story, told he had to get down to 275 or be sent out.

That would be a "tough love" move, but one I wouldn't criticize. It would actually put the long run first, which has been a rarity of late. Vargas needs to develop the self-discipline to stay in shape if he's to have a career, even if it's simply as a DH type. (There was an odd-sounding quote from Molitor recently about Vargas not being in sufficient condition to play nine innings of first base, which is, frankly, an appalling concept for a 24-year-old professional athlete.)

But I expect Vargas to be on the roster and in the lineup. A regular DH and a 12-man pitching staff leaves a four-man bench that would presumably begin with Escobar and include whichever center fielder isn't in the lineup (Robinson or Schafer) and two of the Herrmann-Nunez-Pinto trio. If Vargas gets optioned out, all three make the roster, and presumably Pinto would get the bulk of the DH time, although Molitor might use the DH slot to manufacture playing time for Escobar.

The arbitration tender deadline

Almost lost in the Torii Hunter news Tuesday evening was the deadline for tendering contracts to the arbitration eligible.

As should have been expected after the Twins outrighted Anthony Swarzak -- one of seven arbitration-eligible players on the roster at season's end -- they tendered all six of the remainders: Brian Duensing, Casey Fien, Tommy Milone, Eduardo Nunez, Trevor Plouffe and Jordan Schafer.

One can question the decision to tender Nunez, a utility man who doesn't play any position particularly well and has a career OPS (in 956 a-bats) of just .684. If the Twins are serious about going with Danny Santana at short rather than in the outfield, that relegates Eduardo Escobar to a utility role, and there is nothing Nunez does better than Escobar.

But Nunez is at the least an insurance policy. There are teams looking for a shortstop; maybe the Twins will try to flip Escobar for a pitcher or center fielder. Or maybe they aren't all that sure about Santana as a shortstop and wary of counting on Aaron Hicks and Schafer for center field. If they keep Santana in the outfield, Escobar stays at short and Nunez can be the utility infielder.

As for the other five, I don't see any real question about retaining them. Milone didn't pitch well in his few starts for the Twins before going on the disabled list, but he has a good track record. I'll guarantee this: A team willing to pay the likes of Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey $5 million really can't find $2.8 million for Milone to be excessive.

Revisiting Nunez vs. Solarte vs. Sulbaran

Eduardo Nunez started three straight games at shortstop
against Kansas City this week.

Back at the start of the season, I was not impressed with the maneuvers that brought Eduardo Nunez to the Twins.

Half a season and 82 Nunez at-bats later, his addition looks a lot better than I reckoned it at the time, which means that he not only hasn't fallen on his face but has thrived in a superutility role. Nunez has seen time in the outfield, third base, shortstop and designated hitter for the Twins — and has hit.

I remain skeptical about his bat. Eighty-seven plate appearances don't outweigh the previous 827. He was a below-average hitter with the Yankees, and I don't know of any real reason to think that's changed.

Meanwhile, Miguel Sulbaran, the Class A lefty the Twins gave up to get Nunez, has a 2.86 ERA in the Florida State League (11 games, nine starts, 56.2 innings). He remains a long way from the majors, but this trade still has a chance to look really bad for the Twins someday. (Or Sulbaran could go the way of most A ball pitchers and never amount to anything.)

One point I made in April was that, in a very roundabout way (there's a gap of a couple of years), the Twins and Yankees essentially traded Nunez for Yangervis Solarte. Solarte spent years in the Twins farm system, but even after he hit .329/.367/.466 in Double A in 2011, the Twins didn't deem him worthy of a spot on the 40-man roster.

Solarte then spent two years in the Texas organization without a sniff of the majors, signed with the Yankees as a minor league free agent, beat out Nunez for an infield job in spring training, took over third base in April with a hot start ... and fell off a cliff in June. He hit .303 in April, .296 in May and .164 in June, and he gets to start July in the minors.

Nunez, who spent most of April in the minors with the Twins and two weeks of June on the disabled list, is suddenly seeing considerable action at shortstop. He started all three games against Kansas City at short, and had a couple starts there last month just before his injury.

I'm even more skeptical of Nunez as a shortstop than I am of him as a hitter. His defensive shortcomings were notorious among Yankees fans, and they were comparing him to the rangeless aged Derek Jeter. But Eduardo Escobar's hitting has slid in recent weeks (predictably), and Danny Santana is injured. The Twins are going nowhere in the standings; it doesn't hurt to take a look at Nunez as a shortstop, even if we should already have a pretty good idea of what we'll see.

The return of Pedro Florimon

Trevor Plouffe has gone on the disabled list with what
the Twins announced was rib cage inflammation.

The Twins had a fairly discouraging weekend in Detroit. A good win on Friday, yes. But Saturday ... not only did Sam Deduno have another horrid outing, but the infielders started dropping.

Brian Dozier has a sore back. Eduardo Nunez tweaked a hamstring. Trevor Plouffe has something akin to an oblique strain.

Putting Plouffe on the DL should have been an easy call  even without the other problems. Injuries to that area are not really day-to-day issues, nor are they treatable with anything other than rest. Yet the Twins track record suggests that, absent the other injuries, they would have waited to make a move.

And given the "quality" of the move they did make, one can make a case for reluctance. Pedro Florimon is back.

He didn't hit at Rochester (.230 batting average), and that's to be expected. He was also atrocious in the field (11 errors in 32 games at shortstop), which is not to be expected. His glove is supposed to be the rationale for playing him. If he can't hit and can't field, what's the point?

Florimon got the callup because:

• He and Jorge Polanco are the only infielders left on the 40-man roster;
• Polanco hasn't been above high A ball; and
• the Twins made a hurried move, perhaps without thinking it through.

Florimon really does nothing to bolster the infield depth issue. Counting Dozier as injured, the Twins have three healthy players for second, third and short -- Danny Santana, Eduardo Escobar and Florimon -- and they're all shortstops. Neither Santana nor Florimon has played much second base the past two years, and Santana is supposed to be the center fielder anyway.

James Beresford or Delbinson Romero would have been better callups. Neither is on the 40-man roster, but the Twins know Mike Pelfrey isn't returning anytime soon; he can be shifted to the 60-day disabled list, which would open a spot on the 40.

And, really, it makes more sense to designate Florimon himself for assignment than to bring him back to the majors.

Five thoughts from a three-shortstop win

Chris Parmelee brings his walk-off homer home.

My wife and I went to Target Field to see Tuesday's game in person. A few observations:

* This is said to be Chris Parmelee's eighth time with the Twins, testimony to how the organization has yo-yoed the former first-round pick between the minors and the big club since 2011. Parmelee 8.0 is supposed to be a more aggressive player.

We'll see how well that plays as time passes; 17 plate appearances don't suffice for judgment. But I do take note that two of his three hits Tuesday came off lefty relievers (a single off Craig Breslow and the game-winning home run off Andrew Miller). Parmelee hasn't shown a huge dropoff against lefties in his 648 career plate appearances — he hasn't stuck because he hasn't hit period, not because he hasn't hit southpaws — but considering that his ultimate competition for playing time are fellow lefties Jason Kubel and Oswaldo Arcia, it helps to hit the lefties.

* Three shortstops in the starting lineup: Eduardo Escobar at shortstop, Danny Santana in center field, Eduardo Nunez as the designated hitter. All three did something to help.

Realistically, of course, Nunez should be considered a shortstop in the same vein as Trevor Plouffe. Plouffe came up as a shortstop and demonstrated that he can't hack the position defensively. Nunez did the same with the Yankees.

Still, the use of a purported shortstop as the DH is rather jarring. One is a glove-first position, and defensive skill is completely useless at the other. Almost 30 years ago Bill James ridiculed the Twins for having Roy Smalley split the 1986 season between short and designated hitter: "This is a new role on a major league roster."

Nunez hit a homer off Jake Peavy in the five-run second inning, so it worked. 

* Santana drew two walks — off his minor-league record, it's tough to walk him even once — scored a run and didn't look nearly as lost in center field as fellow shortstop Escobar did a few games ago. Dan Gladden, on the post game radio show, praised Santana for his ability to take his eye off a fly ball, run to the spot and find the ball again.

Santana also got picked off first after one of those walks, and it mattered — he led off the eighth inning with the base on balls and didn't give Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer a chance to make something of the early baserunner.

The Twins can rave about Santana's talent, but he's mistake prone.

* Santana's role is a curious matter right now. The Twins obviously have a hole in center field. Aaron Hicks, for the second straight year, won the job with an impressive spring training and immedately failed to hit once the regular season began. Sam Fuld is 32 and is nobody's answer to center field.

Ron Gardenhire has started Escobar and Santana in center out of desperation. He needs a center fielder now, and the ultimate answer (Byron Buxton) isn't available. But if Santana is the shortstop of the future, playing him in center on a regular basis isn't a good long-term move.

*Escobar's plays were routine. Nothing flashy. But several required long throws after grounders to his backhand side, and he's certainly got sufficient arm for the position. At the plate, Escobar had a hit and a run scored.


I believe that the 2014 Twins are better off with Escobar as the shortstop. But if the Twins believe Santana is the shortstop for the Sano-Buxton era, and if Santana is on the major league roster, Santana should be the shortstop.

On the other hand, maybe they see Santana as a Ben Zobrist-type of multi-position guy in the long run. That's not as crucial as a quality regular shortstop, but Santana may simply be too mistake prone for that.

* It was simply irritating to see Matt Guerrier get the ball with the lead on the line in the seventh inning.

This wasn't the plan. Michael Tonkin started the seventh with two quick outs, then couldn't get the third out. Brian Duensing came in and thought he struck out David Ortiz, but the ump didn't agree, and Ortiz ultimately singled. Then Duensing clearly pitched around Mike Napoli to set up a matchup with Grady Sizemore, only to see Jonny Gomes pinch hit.

At this point, Gardenhire had to bring in a righty. Normally I think it would have been Casey Fien, but I think Gardy wanted to avoid Fien after he got hit in the pitching biceps by a line drive on Sunday. Tonkin had already been used, and I suppose Jared Burton was being saved for the eighth.

So enter Guerrier. It was a telling matchup in this sense: Gomes is a platoon player (.276/.377/.501 vs. lefties in his career, .225/.310/.421 vs. righties). A right-handed short reliever has to be able to put Gomes away. And Guerrier couldn't. Gomes just kept fouling pitches off until he drew the walk to tie the game.

One at-bat, but it serves to confirm my belief that Guerrier at age 35 does not belong in the major leagues.

A change at shortstop?

Eduardo Escobar:
Is he about to claim
the shortstop job?

The Twins lineup for Sunday's game was posted before the postponement was announced, and I noticed that Eduardo Escobar was at shortstop for the second straight game.

Escobar for one game — especially a day game after a night game, as Saturday's start was — would be nothing out of the ordinary. Two games in a row suggests something else in play.

Ron Gardenhire has made his discontent with Pedro Florimon's anemic offense known the past few weeks, but most of the speculation about who would take over the position seems to have centered on Eduardo Nunez, picked up on waivers from the Yankees.

The problem with that notion: Nunez hasn't played a lot of shortstop at Triple A Rochester since the Twins picked him up. Danny Santana is there, and the Twins imagine a future with him securing the shortstop position for several years at least. I'm not as optimistic, but the point is: Developing Santana is a priority.

Plus, Nunez has pretty well established in New York that he's not a quality defensive shortstop, and the Minnesota pitching staff needs all the help it can get from its infield, especially considering the limited range of the outfielders.

Escobar is a more logical alternative if the Twins are about to pull the plug on Florimon as the regular. For one thing, while nobody should expect Escobar to be an offensive force, he has done some hitting in the minors — including a .307/.380/.500 slash line last year in Rochester (just 188 plate appearances).

Unlike Nunez, he is regarded as a capable defensive shortstop (he won the Gold Glove in the Venezulean Winter League during the offseason). I don't know how he compares to Florimon, but presumably the Twins think more highly of Florimon's defense. But no shortstop fields well enough to get away with hitting .115 for April.

I can foresee the Twins bringing Nunez up to take Escobar's utility role, with Escobar taking the regular shortstop job from Florimon. I can't see Nunez getting the shortstop job straight up.

---

Today is the fourth Monday of the month, so it's time for my scheduled stint on KMSU's Southern Minnesota Midday show with Jim "Gully" Gullickson, talking baseball and the Twins at 1 p.m. For those of you within range, KMSU is 89.7 FM (91.3 out of Austin); for those out of range, we'll put a link to a recording on the Free Press website later in the afternoon.

Home opener: Short-handed, long review, bad trade

I went to the Twins home opener Monday. The weather was good, and the Kramarczuk's bratwurst was even better than I remembered.

But Kevin Correia pitched like Kevin Correia, and Sam Deduno committed another balk (that's two for him already), and the Twins were outmatched by the Oakland A's.

That's not surprising -- the A's have legitimate World Series aspirations this season, and the Twins do not. But there were a number of aspects beyond the score that soured my outlook on this team.

---

As it turns out, the Twins didn't put either Oswaldo Arcia or Josh Willingham on the disabled list when they brought up Chris Herrmann. They put Jason Bartlett on the DL instead.

And in the ninth inning, down five runs, Pedro Florimon was allowed to hit for himself to lead off the inning. That's the way to wave the white flag. (He struck out.) Since the A's were using a righty at the moment, why not at least send Herrmann up?

Ron Gardenhire can say the Twins aren't going to play shorthanded this year. What they do, or at least what they're doing, is completely different. Watch -- they'll wait a week or more before DLing at least one of the ailing outfielders.

---

The official review time on the non-home run by Jed Lowrie was 4:11. I had it exceeding five minutes.

This was the second marathon replay review involving the Twins this week, and I doubt they've been the only overly-long ones.

I not-so-humbly suggest that if the replay crew in New York can't make up its mind in 90 seconds or less, it's inconclusive and let's get on with the game.

Eduardo Nunez plays third base during a spring
training game for the Yankees.

---

The Twins traded Class A lefty Miguel Sulbaran to the Yankees for infielder Eduardo Nunez, who had been designated for assignment last week. Nunez, 26, goes on the 40-man roster and will play at Rochester.

Nunez is a mediocre shortstop (that might be a generous evaluation) and not much of a hitter, and personally I wouldn't trade a lefty who had a 2.96 ERA in more than 100 innings in the Midwest League at age 19 for him. I'm not even sure I'd trade Bartlett for him, and I regard Bartlett's presence on the major league roster as an unamusing joke.

Here's something to chew on: The Yankees cut Nunez loose because he got beat out by Yangervis Solarte for their utility infielder job. Solarte spent six years in the Twins system and was jettisoned after hitting .329/.367/.466 in Double A, presumably because the Twins couldn't stand watching him try to field ground balls.

So the Twins dump Solarte, and the Yankees pick him up to dump Nunez, and the Twins pick up Nunez. Somebody's wrong on this series of moves.

That the Twins made this deal either tells us how dissatisfied they are with their current infield depth and/or starters or how unhappy they were that Sulbaran reported to camp in poor condition. Or both.