The Knoblauch legacy

We can trace Brian
Duensing's presence on
the Twins roster to
Chuck Knoblauch.

A few years ago I wrote a print column on the "Knoblauch tree," in which I traced the impact on the Twins of their 1989 decision to draft Chuck Knoblauch in the first round.

As detailed in this Grantland piece by Ben Lindbergh, the Twins are still benefiting from that move.

Knoblauch's personal travails notwithstanding, he had an excellent seven-year run in Minnesota: Starting second baseman on the 1991 World Series team, Rookie of the Year that year, four All-Star teams, a cumulative slash line of .304/..391/.416.

The Twins traded him to the Yankees and got back Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton, Brian Buchanan and Danny Mota (and cash). Mota washed out. The others:

• Guzman was the Twins regular shortstop for six years, during which time they won three division titles. Guzy led the league in triples three times, made an All-Star team, slashed .226/.303/.383. 
• Milton spent six years -- or five really, considering an injury that wiped out most of his final season in Minnesota -- in the Twins rotation, racking up a 57-51 record with a 4.76 ERA and one All-Star season.
• Buchanan wasn't so much of a much. The Twins gave the big outfielder 455 plate appearances over three seasons, in which he hit .258 with 16 homers. But he still matters in this saga.

Guzman left as a free agent; under the prevailing rules, the Twins got a third-round draft pick from the Nationals. (Lindbergh's flow chart says it was the Mariners, but that's an error.) That pick turned into Brian Duensing, still a member of the pitching staff. Duensing to date is 37-36 with a 4.12 ERA with the Twins, splitting his time between the rotation (61 starts) and the bullpen (238 relief outings).

Milton was traded to Philadelphia for Nick Punto, Carlos Silva and Bobby Korecky.

• Korecky's still hanging around at age 35; the Blue Jays gave him 3.1 innings last season. He made just 16 appearances with the Twins before they cut him loose. 
• Punto's also still going; he was with Oakland last year as a reserve infielder. In seven years with the Twins he slashed .248/.323/.324 and drove a vocal contingent of the fan base nuts by repeatedly winding up the regular at one of the infield spots. Third base, second base, shortstop. He left as a free agent and hasn't missed the postseason since.
• Silva spent four years in the Twins rotation, compiling a 47-45, 442 mark and averaging more than 190 innings a year.

That's where these guys' contributions end. Korecky was released, and Punto and Silva's departures as free agents did not bring back any compensation picks.

Buchanan was traded to San Diego for a Class A infielder: Jason Bartlett. Bartlett was with the Twins for three partial seasons and one full one, slashing .272/.341/.362 in those four seasons. His belated emergence as the full-time shortstop was a key to the division title run in 2006, in my opinion the best of the Ron Gardenhire teams.

Bartlett was traded to Tampa Bay. Unlike the previous trades listed here, this wasn't a clean, one-player for this package. The Twins included Matt Garza and Eduardo Moran in the trade and got back Delmon Young, Brendan Harris and Jason Pridie.

• Pridie was the outfield equivalent of Korecky; A short, ineffectual stint with the Twins (11 games, six plate appearances), then cut loose. (Like Korecky, he's still playing; he got four at-bats with Colorado in 2014).
• Harris spent three years with the Twins, playing some shortstop and some third base. He hit .252/.309/.360 with more than 1,000 plate appearances.
• Young had one big season in 2010 and three mediocre ones for the Twins, with a combined slash line of .287/.324/.429. 

Harris was included in the notorious J.J. Hardy trade: Hardy and Harris to Baltimore for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson. The Twins released Jacobson after the 212 season, he stalled out in Double A for the Twins. Hoey had one lousy season with the Twins and was claimed on waivers by Toronto. So this branch of the Knoblauch tree ends there.

Lester Oliveros might
be the best bet to
keep the tree growing.

Young was traded to Detroit for Lester Oliveros and Cole Nelson. Nelson has been released; the Minnesota native pitched for the independent St. Paul Saints last summer. Oliveros, still only 26, has spent the past two years recovering from Tommy John surgery and is regarded as a serious candidate for the Twins bullpen in 2015.

So that's the Knoblauch tree so far. By Lindbergh's computation, it's the seventh-longest current tree in the majors. The longest is an incredible one: The Mets used a 1967 -- that's right, 1967 -- draft pick on Jon Matlack, and almost a half century later have David Wright to show for it. 

Bartlett pulls the plug

Jason Bartlett's 2014 line:
three official at-bats, three
strikeouts, three runs scored.

Jason Bartlett abandoned his comeback attempt this week.

It doesn't often happen that a player has a more realistic view of his abilities than management does, but he apparently could tell what Ron Gardenhire couldn't: He's just not good enough to play major league ball at age 34.

I have been critical, perhaps bitterly so, of the Twins decision to keep Bartlett on the roster. Now that Bartlett had decided to hang 'em up, allow me to note that my displeasure was not aimed at Bartlett himself. I will never criticize a player for trying to squeeze one more year (or two, or three) out of his body. I have a certain admiration for the guys like Jacque Jones, who spent the 2010 season in Triple A trying to get back to the majors.

No, my displeasure was over the Twins' flawed evaluation of Bartlett's current skills. That he emerged from spring training with a major league job was a triumph of wishful thinking and managerial favoritism.

Bartlett this week saved Gardenhire from himself.

Adventures with a misshapen roster

Jason Bartlett: Not
an outfielder.

Strictly speaking, the Minnesota Twins didn't need a legitimate bench outfielder Sunday.

It only looked that way.

The Twins were without Oswaldo Arcia from the get-go. Arcia missed Saturday's game with his sore wrist, which was checked by a doctor in Cleveland and pronounced nothing serious. He sat out Sunday and supposedly is to test it with some swings today but not play then either. (I groaned when I read Ron Gardenhire's statement that if Arcia can't play by Wednesday he'll go on the disabled list because "we're not going to play shorthanded this year." Listen, Gardy: You already are.)

Then Josh Willingham took a Justin Masterson pitch off his wrist and came out of the game an inning later.

Cue the Jason Bartlett experiment. Cue the Jason Bartlett embarrassment: Two badly overmatched at-bats with men on base (both strikeouts) and a third plate appearance for which Cleveland walked Joe Mauer in order to get to Bartlett only to plunk him. And a horrid inning in which he kept diving for balls he couldn't catch and risking further damage.

To be fair, I don't know that he's a worse defensive outfielder than Willingham, who is essentially immobile. Bartlett can run. But he's a career shortstop almost completely lacking in outfield experience, and he clearly doesn't know where his capabilities end and the risk begins. Willingham wouldn't have gotten close to either of the balls Bartlett dove for, but he also wouldn't have left his feet.

Bartlett didn't finish the game; Eduardo Escobar pinch-hit for him (and struck out) and stood in left field for a couple of innings without incident.

The word Sunday evening was that Chris Herrmann, catcher-outfielder, was on his way to the Twin Cities for the home opener. Presumably he'll be activated today for one of the Arcia-Willingham duo. Which would still leave the bench shorthanded, but not as shorthanded as it would have been. And there'll be a reserve who has played a full professional game in the outfield.

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.

What did they expect?

Jason Bartlett has had a horrendous spring at the plate,
but Ron Gardenhire apparently really wants him on the roster.

Before the Twins' game Wednesday, assistant general manager Rob Antony sounded off on the poor springs of several players:

“I wish somebody would step up and earn a job. Nobody’s really doing that, all these guys that are in competition. (Aaron) Hicks hasn’t been anything special this spring. Neither has (Alex) Presley. There’s your centerfield battle. ... Nobody’s really stepped up to try to earn the spots. That’s a bad feeling when you’re looking at giving spots away."

It wasn't just the center fielders Antony was griping about. It was the guys going for the fifth starters job (although, frankly, he really has no reason to complain about Sam Deduno or Kyle Gibson). It was the guys seeking the utility infielder job (Eduardo Escobar, Jason Bartlett and Doug Bernier). It was Jason Kubel, brought in for the DH job.

I am not alone, I know, in responding: What did you expect?

The Twins put their resources this winter into adding pitchers. The only certain change they made to their lineup was replacing Justin Morneau with Kurt Suzuki. Even the low wattage Morneau we've seen since his concussions figures to be a better hitter than Suzuki.

And that's it. The rest of the "upgrades" amount to recycling Jasons (Bartlett and Kubel). The rest of the projected roster is the same bunch that finished near the bottom of the American League in runs scored.

This lineup is going to struggle to score 600 runs, and that struggle was eminently predicable all winter.

Bartlett is one for 27 in Grapefruit League play after finally getting a single Wednesday. Well, the man hasn't hit since 2009. He hadn't played since April 2012. Was Antony really expecting him to hit like vintage Derek Jeter this month?

Hicks hit under .200 last season before the Twins sent him to Triple A, and he hit under .200 there. Then he sat out winter ball. On what basis did Anthony expect him to turn into Pete Rose this spring? (And considering that Hicks had a sensational spring training last year, would it really matter if he did hit like Rose?)

Presley's limitations as a player were manifest last September, when he played pretty much everyday after coming over in the Morneau trade. He's 28. He is what he is. Jason Kubel is 31, he hit .216 last season, and nobody has accused him of overdoing his conditioning work. He's hitting .080 this spring. Josh Willingham is 35, he hit .208 last year, and his skill set seldom ages well.

And now, as March is dwindling, Antony and Ron Gardenhire find themselves with a roster featuring Joe Mauer, Oswaldo Arcia and a bunch of guys who should hit eighth or ninth if they belong in a major league lineup at all.

And somehow they manage to sound surprised about that. What the devil did they expect?

Spring training trip, Day 4: The position battles

Aaron Hicks prepares to hit during
a minor league game Sunday morning.

The Twins cut eight more players Sunday morning, most prominently shortstop prospect Danny Santana. Santana muffed another throw Saturday in the game against the Mets; his inconsistency on the routine play is probably THE issue for him.

Later Sunday morning, incumbent shortstop Pedro Florimon played most of a game between the Triple A and Double A squads. I showed up at that field just in time to see Florimon rip a triple down the right field line off B.J. Hermsen. I also saw Florimon strike out the next time up against Hermsen. I didn't see him called upon to make a play in the field.

Word later Sunday had Florimon scheduled to play in tonight's major league exhibition.

Florimon was one reason Ron Gardenhire was up in the tower watching the action. Another was Aaron Hicks, who was hitting (but not playing in the field) for the Double A team.

I saw Hicks homer off Yohan Pino -- left-handed, Hicks' weaker side -- at which point major league hitting coach Tom Brunansky stuck his head in the dugout and called him out of the game. A few minutes later, both Hicks and Florimon were riding a golf cart to the main stadium.

With non-roster guys Darin Mastroianni and Jermaine Mitchell sent down  in the morning cuts, the center field job is down to Hicks and Alex Presley. Presley started Sunday's game against the Miami Marlins. He singled in his first at-bat and laer reached on an error. After the error, he tried to steal second. And, for the second time this spring, Presley beat the throw but overslid the base. He's 0-for-3 as a base stealer this spring.

Hicks later replaced Presley in the game and doubled (right-handed, and with help from the Miami left fielder) in his only at-bat.

If I had to guess right now, I'd say Hicks is the likely center fielder to open the season.

---

Just to update my obsession with the notion of Jason Bartlett making the roster: He entered the game late at second base. He came up after Hicks' double in the bottom of the eighth. The lefty pitching for Miami fell behind 2-0.

Ahead in the count. With the platoon advantage. Against a minor leaguer with 18 MLB innings to his credit. This was a prime shot for Bartlett to break his Grapefruit League 0-fer, right? Uh, no. He swung at the 0-2 and hit a weak foul to the first base side. He did, ultimately, draw a walk; he is now 0-for-23 with two walks, which works out to an on-base percentage of .080.

Things figure to come to a head pretty quickly. Bartlett is said to have a March 25 opt-out; if he's not on the roster by then, he can declare free agency. The Twins should call that bluff; this is getting ridiculous.

Pic of the Week

Jonathan Herrera makes a jump throw
Thursday to throw out the Twins'
Wilkin Ramirez.

This photo gets the nod because I was there and thought it a good play on a difficult chance, but I didn't have the angle on it that the photographer did. The second baseman had to go behind the bag to field the ball, and instead of planting his foot to make the throw, he used the Derek Jeter-style jump throw. With, it appears, serious hops.

Jonathan Herrera is a 29-year old who's been with the Rockies for all or part of five seasons. Now he's competing for a utility infielder job with the Red Sox with prospect Brock Holt. This the sort of roster battle that doesn't get much attention outside the fan base; nobody's basing their fantasy draft on who wins this job. (For what it's worth, Herrera's the likely winner.)

But the contrast with the Twins is illuminating. The Twins have a similar young guy-veteran competition for their utility infielder job too. Only their veteran is a 34-year-old who was out of baseball last season, Jason Bartlett.

Herrera isn't a great player by any means; he didn't start for the Rockies, and he isn't going to start for the Red Sox. But it's easier to take him seriously as a major league player in 2014 than Bartlett.

Spring training trip, Day 2: The shortstops

Jason Bartlett hasn't
played in the majors
since April 2012.

It was a couple hours before game time on Thursday, and the Twins infielders were leaving the little "Tom Kelly Field," passing between the barricades on their way back inside.

A voice called out: "Welcome back, Jason!"

Jason Bartlett -- the Twins regular shortstop in 2006-7 who was then dealt away in the ill-fated Delmon Young trade -- stopped, eyed the fans lining the railings, and walked over to a boy, to whom he handed his bat.

Since leaving the Twins, Bartlett has been an All-Star, played in a World Series, and been out of the game completely. Now he's trying, at age 34, to make that call of "welcome back" a reality.

The odds are against him. He started Friday's game at Hammond Stadium at shortstop. One hard smash handcuffed him, although he did block the ball and got the out. At the plate, he flew out twice to left field, making him 0-for-19 in "official" Grapefruit League play.

Bartlett spent Thursday afternoon playing around the outfield and leading off every inning in a minor league game. This effort was of sufficient interest to Ron Gardenhire that he skipped the early innings of the major league game to see Bartlett.

Gardenhire cast Bartlett's performance in a positive light -- he hit three balls hard --  and the consensus of the press seems to be that the manager really wants to have Bartlett on his roster as a utility guy.

Gardy is a powerful ally to have in a roster fight, but even he doesn't see Bartlett as a legit shortstop contender. And at some point, Bartlett has to hit.

Elsewhere in shortstop land:

Pedro Florimon, the incumbent recovering from an appendectomy, played a few innings Friday in a minor league game. Seth Stohs was watching:

Pedro Florimon flew out to LF in 1st AB in Ft. Myers game.
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

Florimon fielded a ground ball but threw low to 1B for an error.
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

Florimon strikes out looking for his second at bat..
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

One-hopper to pitcher in Florimon's third at bat in 3 innings.
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

OK, not the best of outings for Florimon.

In Tampa, prospect Danny Santana hit a double in the major league team's split squad win over the Yankees. He also misplayed a throw ...

Ellsbury doubles on 0-2 fastball from Gibson. Arcia throw beat him to bag, but Santana fails to glove. #MNTwins
— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) March 14, 2014

It's 1-1. Ellsbury given double (although Santana should have caught bouncing throw from Arcia). Double by Roberts. Both on 0-2 pitches
— LaVelle E. Neal III (@LaVelleNeal) March 14, 2014

And, again, that's the kind of thing that grates on a manager. Makeable plays that aren't made keep shortstops in the minors.

Eye on 2014: Shortstop

Incumbent Pedro Florimon was good in the field
and not at the plate.

Incumbent shortstop Pedro Florimon said during TwinsFest that he had been told going into the 2013 season that he was the Twins shortstop. He also said he had not been given that assurance this winter.

And he shouldn't be a sure thing. Florimon was one of the better defensive shortstops in the majors last season -- by Baseball Info Systems' runs saved and plus minus metrics, he was probably the best in the non-Andrelton Simmons division -- but his offensive numbers were awful (.221/.281/.330).

Rermember: The Twins were near the bottom of the AL in runs scored. They can't easily afford to give up a lineup spot.

But who else might the Twins turn to to man the position? Florimon is clearly Option A still, but there are two other possibilities on the 40-man roster, and one not on anybody's roster.

Option B: Eduardo Escobar. Like Florimon, Escobar is a switch hitter with a good-field no-hit reputation. .He is two years younger than the incumbent, and he did have an impressive batting line in Rochester after the Twins sent him down at the All-Star break (.307/.380/.500).

If that slash line were valid, Escobar might well be a better choice than Florimon. The problem is, those two months aren't backed up with any other indication that he can hit.

Option C: Danny Santana. He's hit for good averages in High A (2012) and Double A (2013); Baseball America listed him as the Twins' No. 7 prospect and as the best defensive infielder in the system.

I'm less optimistic about him. I see chronic problems in controlling the strike zone. Last year, at New Britain, he walked 24 times and struck out 94 times. He's had that kind of ugly ratio at each level. I have trouble imagining how he's going to keep hitting .280 and higher with that poor ratio.

As for the defense, he commits a lot of errors. While the Twins claim the boots are because of his superior range, it's pretty clear he's muffing routine plays as well.

Maybe he really is a future regular. Even if he is, I doubt this is the year for that. I see Triple A for him.

Option D: Free agent Stephen Drew. The regular for the Red Sox last season, Drew remains on the market in large part because (a) he will cost the signing team a draft pick; (b) his agent is Scott Boras, who is, to be charitable, a patient negotiator insistent on top dollar; and (c) teams may well be wary of Drew's injury history.

Drew is 30. He played 124 games (plus the postseason) last year; he was limited to 86 and 79 games the previous two seasons. The Red Sox, with Xavier Bogearts ready, appear more interested in collecting an extra pick than in retaining Drew.

It would be extremely out of character for the Twins to sign Drew. Terry Ryan is always loathe to surrender a draft pick. (In the Twins' case, signing Drew would cost their second-round pick, not their first rounder, but it would still be a premium pick.)

There is, I'm sure, a combination of price and contract length at which Ryan and Co. would be willing to give up that pick. I don't know that Boras is going to agree to something so team-friendly that Ryan would agree to it, but Drew doesn't seem to have a lot of options right now.

Part of this equation may well be how highly the Twins really regard Santana. If they truly view him as the shortstop of the future, splurging on Drew just gets in the way. If they have the same reservations about Santana that I have, Drew makes a lot more sense.

I'm pretty sure the Twins don't regard Florimon or Escobar as long-term solutions at short.

Former Twins shortstop Jason Bartlett will be in camp as a nonroster invitee, but I can't see him as a serious possibility. Bartlett is 34. He hasn't played well since 2010 at the latest and hasn't played at all since the first month or so of 2012. The Twins don't really have anything invested in him, and they won't get anything out of him.

Notes, quotes and comment

The news Monday that Joe Mauer will no longer catch was, deservedly, the big deal in Twins Territory — arguably a more significant announcement than the retention of Ron Gardenhire as manager. But there were other news items worthy of attention.

* The Twins signed former shortstop Jason Bartlett to a minor league contract and suggested he would have the opportunity to reclaim the shortstop position he vacated when traded after the 2007 season.

Really? Bartlett? Seriously? I don't buy it.

General manager Terry Ryan said Monday that incumbent shortstop Pedro Florimon is not a lock to keep the job. And he shouldn't be; Florimon fielded well, but he didn't hit. The Twins should be open to alternatives.

Bartlett isn't a realistic one. He's 34; he hasn't played since May of 2012, when the Padres cut him loose; his numbers were in decline before the knee injury he blames for his release; the Twins haven't even bothered to scout his workouts.

The Twins aren't risking anything on this minor league deal. I don't think there's any gain in it either.

The Atlanta Braves plan to desert Turner Field after just
20 years in the former Olympic Stadium.

* The Atlanta Braves announced plans to move from Turner Field once their lease is expired to a new stadium to be built in suburban Cobb County.

This is odd on a number of levels. Turner Field is just 17 years old, for one thing; for another, the Braves are bucking the overall movement of teams closer to the city center. A piece of civic infrastructure that cost hundreds of millions to construct is now to be discarded as if it were a fast-food outlet.

I've never been to Atlanta, so my knowledge of Turner Field (and its predecessor, the cookie-cutter Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium) is second hand. Turner, of course, was originally the Olympic Stadium for the 1996 games, designed to be retrofitted for baseball. I assume that it is miles ahead of the old concrete doughnut as a place to watch baseball but a step or two short of the likes of the baseball cathedrals in Pittsburgh, San Francisco and (yes) Minneapolis.

But this isn't about aesthetics. It's about a complex and unsavory melange of greed, demographics (racial and socioeconomic), dysfunctional urban planning, absentee ownership, corporate miscues and, worthy of additional emphasis, greed.

Shortstops and front offices

I have suspected, and frequently written, that Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was never all that happy with Jason Bartlett as his shortstop. I inferred this from the manager's reluctance to play Bartlett when it came time to replace Cristian Guzman and his harping on Bartlett's willingness to defer to such veterans as Luis Castillo and Tony Batista.

Bartlett became the regular shortstop in 2006 after Gardenhire was stripped of his alternatives. Terry Ryan released Batista (with Nick Punto taking third base) and traded away Juan Castro. Bartlett's defense was a big factor in the Twins' surge in 2006; the next season, he committed a string of errors that helped bury the Twins early in games down the stretch of a disappointing season. Ryan stepped aside late in 2007, and new general manager Bill Smith quickly included Bartlett in a big trade with Tampa Bay.

And the Twins really haven't been stable at shortstop since. They opened 2008 with Adam Everett at short and finished it with Punto there. They opened 2009 with Punto and ended with Orlando Cabrera. They traded for J.J. Hardy for the 2010 season; he didn't play 100 games. They moved Hardy and spent 2011 with a patchwork of incompetence (Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Alexi Casilla, Trevor Plouffe and Matt Tolbert). Now they intend to open 2012 with Jamey Carroll, a 38-year-old career utility infielder, at the position.

I drag all this history up because on Tuesday Brett Bollinger, the MLB.com Twins beat reporter, posted a piece that said Gardnehire, talking about Carroll at short, said that he was never in favor of trading away Bartlett.

Maybe so. My inference was drawn from the doubtless simplistic equation: Gardenhire was reluctant to play Bartlett in 2005-'06; when Bartlett got the job in May of '06, it was because he was the only choice Ryan left Gardenhire; Bartlett made some crucial errors in '07; Ryan retired; and Bartlett was quickly out the door.

I wasn't, obviously, in the meetings, and I don't know what Gardenhire really thought of Bartlett then (or now). Certainly somebody (or somebodies) in the Twins organization underrated Bartlett at the time; he turned out to be the best player in what remains known as the Delmon Young-Matt Garza deal. Whether it was Gardenhire or Smith or somebody else, I don't really know, but I continue to doubt that Smith was substituting his judgement for that of the organization's more experienced evaluators.

I don't think it matters now; Bartlett is now with San Diego as a 32-year-old shortstop who hasn't hit for two seasons. Were he still a Twin, they might still have a shortstop question.

Dissecting the Bill Smith era: The Young-Garza trade

Almost all of Delmon
Young's value with the
Twins came in 2010.

When: Nov. 28, 2007
What: The Twins sent RHP Matt Garza, SS Jason Bartlett and RHP Eduardo Morlan to Tampa Bay for RF Delmon Young, INF Brendan Harris and OF Jason Pridie.
Values: Garza has earned 44 win shares and 11.9 WAR (wins above replacement) since the trade; Bartlett 64 WS and 13.9 WAR; Morlan has yet to play in the majors. Young has earned 52 WS, 1.3 WAR; Harris 19 WS, -0.2 WAR; Pridie 4 WS, 0.3 WAR. The three players Tampa Bay received have earned 108 win shares and 25.8 wins above replacement since the trade; the three players the Twins got earned 75 WS, 1.4 WAR. None of the six remain with the same team.
Twins motivation: Plugging outfield holes.

When Bill Smith inherited the general manager's job in September 2007, he faced two large and obvious issues: The pending free agency of Torii Hunter and Johan Santana's walk year.

Connected to the Hunter issue was that the 2007 Twins had a gaping hole in left field. Since it was quite obvious that the Twins were not about to meet Hunter's price, Smith was looking at two vacancies in the 2008 outfield.

Young was an intriguing trade target -- young, strong, he had hit .288 and driven in 90-plus runs as a 21-year-old in 2007. He appeared fully capable of living up to his status as the No. 1 overall pick in 2003.

Garza was also a first-round draft pick with intriguing talent. The Twins had a surplus of young starting pitchers and a shortage of usable outfielders; Garza and Young were the obvious cornerstones of the trade.

Brendan Harris washed out as
a second baseman early in 2008
and spent his Twins tenure
shuffling between third base,
shortstop and the bench.

But Young was not only a former first pick but somewhat more accomplished in the majors already. The Rays needed something more -- and that something more turned the trade in their favor.

I have always believed, reading between the lines, that Ron Gardenhire was never sold on Bartlett as his shortstop. He was reluctant to play Bartlett and only installed him in the lineup in 2006 when then-GM Terry Ryan gave him no choice by dealing away veteran Juan Castro. In 2007, Bartlett committed a string of costly early-inning errors down the stretch that helped bury the Twins' final chances of getting back into the race.

It was the exchange of shortstops -- Bartlett for Harris -- that made this a plus trade for Tampa Bay. Garza for Young is even enough to justify given the needs of the Twins at the time; Pridie and Morlan are essentially irrelevant. But Harris' defensive deficiencies -- which were evident in the defensive metrics at the time -- kept him from becoming a regular with the Twins. And the Twins haven't had a 100-game shortstop season since dumping Bartlett.

Neither Young nor Garza have so far truly lived up to expectations. Both were traded within the past year, and there are reports that the Cubs are shopping Garza around.

About Jason Bartlett

An interesting quote from former Minnesota shortstop Jason Bartlett in this Star Tribune piece about former Twins on this year's All-Star rosters:

Asked what the Twins must think of his success, he said, "It's kind of a pleasure for me. They needed Delmon [Young], and they wanted to get rid of me, and that was kind of something to push me."

The key phrase there: They wanted to get rid of me.

Now, the Twins front office has never described the inclusion of Bartlett in what is commonly known as the Matt Garza-Delmon Young trade in anything like those words. We can dismiss this as a version of that tired claim by a championship team, "Nobody believed in us but ourselves." Athletes will create underdog status for themselves as a motivator -- and Bartlett does say it was kind of something to push me.

That said, the Twins did give him up in that trade, and shortstop has been a problem for them since.

And I do think the Twins undervalued Bartlett. I think the Twins know about the sophisticated defensive metrics but prefer to judge fielders by the evidence of their eyes — traditional scouting. Bartlett shined with the Twins in the metrics, but in 2007 — the year before the Twins sent him to Tampa Bay — about a third of his errors came in the first two innings and resulted in unearned runs that put the Twins behind. I wrote about this at the time, how this doubtless stuck in Ron Gardenhire's craw.

And Gardy was slow to accept Bartlett as his shortstop to begin with. His rationale was that Bartlett didn't carry himself with the aggressive, take-charge attitude that Gardenhire regards as essential for the position. It wasn't until Terry Ryan, then the general manager, gave his manager no other choice that Bartlett got the job.

The Rays know traditional scouting; that's how they drafted and signed Young to begin with. They also, I believe, have a better grasp of the sabermetric virtues, and a willingness to accept newer ways of judging talent — which was why they were willing to deal Young away, why they decided Brendan Harris was unacceptable at short, and why they wanted Bartlett.

Things I can't explain

* How the San Diego Padres have a 10-game winning streak.

*How the Chicago Cubs (100 wins in 2008) have an eight-game losing streak ... with half those losses coming to the Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates.

* How it is that the corpse of Gary Sheffield has been resurrected. He's hitting .277 for the Mets, but more impressively, his OBP is .417 and his slugging percentage is .494.

* How it is that Jason Bartlett is hitting .373-.418-.596. Again: Jason Bartlett's slugging percentage is just a nick below .600. (Yeah, I know: He's using a big Justin Morneau bat to warm up. Give me a better reason.) Nick Punto is a nick below that too ... several nicks. Cut Bartlett's percentages in half, and you've still got better numbers than Punto in two of the three percentages. (.181-.290.-.198). Punto hit .284-.344-.382 last season and Bartlett hit .286-.329-.361 ... but of course Punto had a similar season to this in 2007, the other time he came into the season with a regular job secured.

* Why anybody pitches to Joe Mauer at all. I was amused by the Terry Francona quote in the game story after Mauer hit his two-run pinch-hit homer (which left the Twins one run short: "I'm glad he came up where he could hit that ball as far as he wanted, and he about did."

*Why Dusty Baker keeps pulling this stuff. Last year he used starter Aaron Harang for four innings of relief in an extra inning game, then started him two days later; Harang's season went into the toilet. On Sunday, Harang started; there was a two-hour rain delay; Harang pitched after the delay too. He had 93 "real" pitches and Lord knows how many extra ones during the delay trying to stay loose. Harang's having a nice season so far; let's see if it survives this.