Shuffling the roster

Jason Kubel choose
not to report to Triple-A
Rochester.

A few Twins roster notes to clear out of the way:

* Jason Kubel cleared waivers and declined a minor-league assignment. So the Twins will release him.

Kubel was designated for assignment to make room for Kendrys Morales. This may be it for Kubel as a major league player. He's only 32 and wacked 30 homers for Arizona as recently as 2012, but his bat just up-and-died in midseason of that year.

Seriously: At the All-Star break in 2012 he was slashing .293/.367/.533; after the break, .201/.275/.470. Still a good slugging percentage, but the homers was all he did ... and it got worse from there.

So it's been about two calendar years since he was a truly good hitter. 

* Aaron Hicks went on the disabled list Friday after getting his sore shoulder examined. Sam Fuld was reactivated from the concussion DL.

It's possible Hicks would have been optioned out this weekend to make room for Fuld had he not gotten hurt. He needs more regular at-bats, especially against righties, as he transitions from switch-hitting, than he was going to get in the majors.

Mike Pelfrey's
surgery was done by
Dr. James Andrews,
who also did his
2012 Tommy John
surgery.

* Mike Pelfrey had surgery to remove scar tissue in his right elbow that was pressing on his ulna nerve and causing tingling in his pitching arm.

He kept saying he was healthy, but the radar gun readings said something was wrong. Presumably this was the something.

Pelfrey is to miss at least two months, which would put his return no earlier than mid August. I'll hazard the guess that the only way he gets on a major league mound again this year is if the Twins fall out of contention. (He has another year on his contract with the Twins.)

*Eric Fryer was indeed the callup to replace Josmil Pinto as the No. 2 catcher. Chris Herrmann was at the same time reactivated off the minor league disabled list.

On Kendrys Morales, Jason Kubel and Nick Burdi

Kendrys Morales started
his career with the
Angels, then was traded
to Seattle.

My Monday print column focused on the Twins signing of Kendrys Morales, specifically on these points:

• Whether the Twins are really the contenders this move suggests they think they are;
• How Morales and agent Scott Boras misjudged his market;
• How the Twins might well, should they slide out of the playoff picture, turn around and trade Morales.

Morales is truly a no-lose signing. He's not blocking, at least for this year, anybody who really deserves a chance to play.

Well, that may not be completely true. One can argue that Morales will keep Josmil Pinto from seeing regular time as the designated hitter. But the reality is that Ron Gardenhire isn't going to use Pinto as a regular DH without a third catcher on the roster, and the front office isn't going to give Gardy a third catcher he doesn't going to use.

---

The decision to dump Jason Kubel was inevitable. He hadn't had a hit in his last 31 plate appearances (0 for 26 with five walks and 12 strikeouts). His last extra base hit came on April 25.  His final slash line -- .224/.313/.295 -- is uncomfortably close to his 2013 line -- .216/.293/.317.

Kubel is one of many players who might well wish to try this career over. We can only wonder how things would have played out for him had he not wrecked his knee in the Arizona Fall League back in 2004. At the time, the Twins viewed him as a hitting prospect at the same level as Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau.

Life didn't work out that way.

Even with the chronic knee issue, Kubel was a dangerous hitter for several years. He might have been even more dangerous had he played for a manager who valued platoons.

Kubel's final start with the Twins, fittingly, came against a left-handed pitcher. At this point, it probably didn't matter.

---

Had the Twins signed Morales any earlier, they would have forfeited the 46th pick in this year's draft. And the money allotted to their bonus pool for that pick (more than $1.2 million) would have vanished as well.

Instead, the Twins got to pick Nick Burdi (who they also drafted out of high school in 2011 but didn't sign).

Burdi is the closer for the University of Louisville. His college season is still going; the Cardinals earned a berth in the College World Series this weekend.

He is a true power arm, pretty regularly hitting triple digits on the radar gun, and there is a genuine expectation that he can come to the majors as soon as this summer. Indeed, some pre-draft speculation had him going late in the first round to a contending team looking for somebody who could goose their bullpen depth for the stretch run. (I'm really rather surprised Detroit didn't do that.)

It seems likely that adding Burdi to the organization is worth two months of Kendrys Morales.

The wasting of Josmil Pinto

Josmil Pinto last DHed
on May 16, almost
two weeks ago.

The Twins lost 1-0 Wednesday night. They played the game, as they have seven of their last eight, with one of their better hitters riding the pine.

Josmil Pinto figures to be in the lineup for today's nooner; he has become Sam Deduno's personal catcher, and that works on a variety of levels. It gives Kurt Suzuki a game off once every five games, and it's good for a catcher to sit that often. It also spares the hard-working Suzuki the physical beating Deduno's wildness figures to produce for the catcher. This battery pairs the rotation's one native Spanish speaker with a native Spanish speaker.

But Pinto should be playing more often than once every trip through the rotation. Maybe not at catcher -- Suzuki is clearly the more polished backstop, and he has, despite signs that his magic is wearing off, been a more productive hitter over the first two months of the season than could have been expected.

But still ... Pinto's got to play. The Twins, who in April had one of the highest runs scored totals in baseball, have sagged to the middle of the pack now, and part of the problem is that Pinto isn't getting the DH time he had been.

He isn't DHing because he's the backup catcher and Ron Gardenhire is loathe to play without a bona fide catcher on his bench.

Gardenhire's thinking on that specific aspect doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does several Twins bloggers on my Twitter feed. Catching is a unique position.

Sitting Pinto because the roster is without a third catcher is good reason to have a third catcher on the roster. Especially when one of the roster spaces is being wasted on Jason Kubel.

The Twins currently have on their roster Oswaldo Arcia, Kubel and Chris Parmelee -- three left-handed hitting corner outfielders of dubious defensive value. To be blunt, if they can't hit, they can't play.

And Kubel hasn't hit. His current OPS+ (On-base Plus Slugging compared to league average) is 84, meaning he's 16 percent below league average. (Pinto's, in contrast, is 125, 25 percent above league average.) An OPS+ of 84 is acceptable from a high-quality defensive shortstop; if Pedro Florimon had an OPS+ of 84, Eduardo Escobar would still be looking for playing time. It doesn't fly for a corner outfielder-designated hitter.

Kubel's slash line in May: .188/..297/.188. That's unusable, all the more so since Arcia and Parmelee make him redundant.

The argument against bringing Chris Herrmann back might be stated thusly: He's only here as an insurance policy. The Twins don't want to actually use him. 

And I agree with that. But they should want to actually use Pinto. And there's little reason for them to want to use Kubel. Herrmann's not a great hitter, but neither is Kubel these days.

Dump Kubel. Bring back a third catcher. And stop letting Pinto rot four games of five.

On Oswaldo Arcia and Jason Kubel

The Twins on Wednesday reactivated Oswaldo Arcia from the disabled list and optioned him to Triple A Rochester. (Today marked the end of Arcia's rehab stint, so a move had to be made.)

Arcia is hitting .308/.349/.487 for the Red Wings, but the Twins front office told reporters that's not good enough:

Needs to show more consistency. Still lotta Ks RT @jdotmcmahon: @MikeBerardino Any explanation at all for the Arcia demotion???
— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) May 14, 2014

Just relaying what Gardy said. RT @rlien33: @MikeBerardino @jdotmcmahon that's silly, those will always be there
— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) May 14, 2014

Rob Antony on Arcia: "He's not on top of his game offensively."
— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) May 15, 2014

OK, he struck out in about a fourth of his Triple A at-bats entering Wednesday's play. Jason Kubel has struck out in more than a third of his at-bats this season, and the rate is getting worse as time goes on.

Every at-bat Kubel gets in the majors while a healthy Arcia rakes in Triple A is an affront to the future of this team. And to the fans who aren't so enamoured with the nostalgic approach to the roster.

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.

Spring training trip, Day 1: Overview

Matt Hoffman has
spent six years in
the Detroit Tigers system,
compiling a minor league
record of 19-27,  3.90

I'm in Fort Myers for a few days to take in a little spring training and escape what I presume is the continuing melt from our harsh winter.

A few comments from today's game (I'll have another post in the morning on a specific player):

The Twins pitching usage might contain a signal. Phil Hughes started and went three innings. The first two were very good, the third was ugly -- there were two errors, a play that should have been made but wasn't, a play that probably couldn't be made but almost was, and way too many pitches.

Sam Deduno, the apparent front-runner for the fifth starter job, was also scheduled to work. But before he got the call, non-roster lefty Matt Hoffman worked two innings. The first was clean, the second was not: another infield error resulted in two runs. Unearned runs, but they still count as runs.

This interests me because the Twins used Hoffman while the Red Sox still had their regulars in the game. They obviously wanted to see him against bona fide major league hitters. Duduno got his work in against the subs (three clean innings).

My inference: The idea of replacing Brian Duensing with Hoffman may have legs.

Brandon Waring takes an unsuccessful
swing during Thursday's game against
the Boston Red Sox.

Jason Kubel looked a bit trimmer than I remember. He drew two walks Thursday, one of them against a lefty. Earlier in the week, he homered off a lefty, and a really good one (David Price). Kubel hadn't done much this spring before this week, and he probably needed to start showing something.

I'm not trying to sell this as reason to believe in Kubel. There's a lot of reason to say he can't hit lefties enough to justify playing him against them -- like his entire career. But there are people in the Twins organization looking for reason to believe in him, and one in particular is the manager.

Brandon Waring is a minor league vet in camp as a nonroster invitee. We were seated next to the assistant general manager of the Bowie Baysox, the Double A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, and he spoke highly of Waring, who he described as a decent third baseman, can play first or (in a pinch) an outfield corner, good power, doesn't hit for average.

I theorize the Twins signed Waring because they figured Miguel Sano was going to need surgery and they needed the third base help for the high minors. That's how it worked out.

Eye on 2014: Designated hitter

Jason Kubel with Arizona last season. It was not a good year.

Oswaldo Arcia is Jason Kubel a decade ago: Left-handed hitting corner outfielder, not particularly adept defensively, a bit overlooked because of a pair of brighter rising talents.

In Kubel's case those talents were Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. In Arcia's, they're Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano.

Kubel never achieved quite the level of performance expected. A big part of that was the devastating knee injury he suffered in the Arizona Fall League. That injury took away what speed was part of his game. To what extent it limited his hitting is more difficult to tell, but Kubel never hit lefties at all.

And now Kubel, age 31, prepares to report to Fort Myers on a minor-league, make-good contract. He's coming off a injury-troubled 2013 in which he hit .216/.293/.317 with Arizona and Cleveland, and coming off a winter in which he presumably drew no major-league offers. How else to explain his return to Target Field -- a hitting environment he was known to dislike -- on a minor-league deal?

He's still the favorite to open the season with the DH job. The odd thing about that is that Kubel is probably a better defensive outfielder than either Josh Willingham or Arcia. But Arcia should be given the opportunity to grow, and my guess is that Willingham as an outfielder will have more trade value in midseason than Kubel as an outfielder will.

Kubel now has almost no value, hence the minor-league deal. If he doesn't hit in 2014, he might not get another shot anywhere.

The return of Jason Kubel

Jason Kubel: He's back, more or less, with the Twins.

The Twins on Friday signed old friend Jason Kubel to a minor-league deal.

It's a move that doesn't make sense to me on either end.

The Twins have plenty of minimal defense corner outfielders already: Josh Willingham, Ryan Doumit, Oswaldo Arcia, Chris Parmelee.

And, granted, Kubel had a miserable 2012 (.216/.292/.317), split between Arizona and Cleveland. But was his market really so limited that he had to settle for a minor league contract in a hitting environment (Target Field) he was known to have disliked before he left as a free agent?

Kubel turns 32 in May, and it's certainly plausible that he can bounce back as a hitter. It's also likely that his best years are behind him -- which is also true of Willingham and Doumit as well. All three are on the wrong side of 30.

If Kubel couldn't find a major league roster spot -- and he didn't -- that suggests a very weak trade market for Willingham and Doumit.

My real fear is that Kubel will become an excuse for the Twins to bat Arcia around like a ping pong ball. I don't want to see another year in which the kid strikes out three times on Wednesday, sits Thursday and Friday, pinch hits on Saturday and goes down to Rochester on Sunday. I want Arcia hitting cleanup on a regular basis. I want to see some patience with him.

There's a future in Arcia. There's a past in Kubel, Willingham and Doumit. Embrace the future.

Notes, quotes and comment

Yu don't say

I really thought Friday that Yu Darvish was going to get his no-hitter against the Twins. Through six innings, Darvish appeared literally unhittable — it's truly astounding to see a major league hitter like Trevor Plouffe miss a pitch by that much.

And then, in the seventh, a walk and boom, boom — Chris Herrmann and Justin Morneau go deep, and the unhittable is hit.

Waiver followups

Former Twin Jason Kubel, designated for assignment earlier in the week by Arizona, wound up with the Cleveland Indians. And Josh Willingham remains with the Twins.

I didn't really see the Twins claiming Kubel; their outfield shortage, even with Wilkin Ramirez out the rest of the way after fracturing his tibia, is center-field specific. At no point in his career was Kubel ever a center field option.

And I never viewed the Twins as a motivated seller on Willingham. The Orioles, who are reported to have won the claim on the Hammer, instead swung a deal for Mike Morse, another right-handed slugger with defensive issues. Unlike Willingham, Morse is a free agent after the season, so the O's aren't financially committed past next month.

Miguel Sano crushes a double in the seventh inning Friday.
This image was tweeted by Scott Blanchette, the
RockCats' team photographer.

Miguel Sano

I caught part of a Terry Ryan radio interview late Friday morning. One of the topics was why mega prospect Miguel Sano won't get a September callup.

Ryan talked a little about the 40-man roster implications of such a move, then said something curious: Sano, he claimed, is struggling in Double A.

If only the Twins hitters were as deeply mired in woe as Sano and his .890 OPS with New Britain.

I don't want to be too sarcastic here. I accept Ryan's belief that Sano isn't ready for the majors right now, and I understand why Ryan wishes to avoid unnecessarily tying up a 40-man roster spot this winter. Sano's batting average with New Britain is under .240. The OPS is driven by his extra-base hits (33 of 'em, including 17 homers, in 260 plate appearances) and his walks (35). The stat line shows a lot of errors and a lot of strikeouts.

For the record, Sano on Friday hit a pair of home runs and a double. He'll get to the majors soon enough.

Notes, quotes and comment

The last time the Twins put up a crooked number -- meaning they scored more than one run in an inning -- was in the seventh inning last Friday, 38 innings ago. They scored two runs in that frame.

Obviously the starting pitching this year has not been good enough for the Twins to contend. But the offense has been just as bad. And since we knew coming in that the starting pitching was questionable, the offense is truly the larger disappointment.

The Twins expected more from Trevor Plouffe, Josh Willingham, Ryan Doumit and even the unestablished Chris Parmelee and Aaron Hicks than they got. To a lesser extent, that's also true of Justin Morneau. (I don't think anybody expected much from Pedro Florimon as a hitter, and that's what he's provided.)

They just don't have enough Joe Mauers to make this lineup work. Right now, of course, they don't have any Joe Mauers. And it shows.

---

Jason Kubel has had a lost season in Arizona, with just
five home runs. Last year he bopped 30 long balls.

Former Twin Jason Kubel was designated for assignment Tuesday by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Kubel hit 30 homers for the D-backs last year, the first year of his two-year contract, but this year was hampered by back and quad problems. He'd lost his starting job and leaves Arizona hitting a mere .220/.288/.324, a far cry from his career slash numbers (.265/.330/.456).

But Kubel's production really started its sudden dissolution last season. He entered last August hitting .290 with 22 home runs; in August he hit .159, in September he hit .186. And he never got going at any point this year.

He's 31. There ought to be some juice left in his bat. But if he's physically not able to show it in what remains of the 2013 season -- and that the D-backs are willing to dump him now suggests he's not -- it may be difficult for him to find a major league contract for 2014.

---

The reports late Wednesday had the Baltimore Orioles winning the waiver claim on Josh Willingham. The Twins and O's have until Friday to work out a deal; if they fail, Willingham stays with Minnesota the rest of the season.

My guess is no deal. The Twins have no obvious need to move Willingham now; he's under contract for next season, and his value is probably at a low point, since he, like Kubel, has had a injury-plagued season that hasn't been up to his established standard.

---

The Twins this week released minor league veteran relievers Luis Perdomo and Tim Wood. Perdomo got some major league action with the Twins last year, showing velocity without command. Which is pretty much what he's always had.

Wood was signed as a minor league free agent after an impressive season in Triple A with the Pirates organization, despite which the Pirates never called him up. Wood spent most of the year on the shelf with arm troubles. He occupied a 40-man roster spot all year and never really came close to landing a 25-man slot.

Releasing him opens a 40-man roster spot if the Twins want to give a September call-up to somebody not now on the 40.

Fare-thee-well, Jason Kubel

Jason Kubel will probably find it easier to hit
long balls in Arizona than in Minnesota.

It's easy to imagine alternative Twins careers for Jason Kubel, who will now pursue an alternative career with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

What if ...

• He hadn't wrecked his knee in an Arizona Fall League collision with a second baseman?
• He had played for a manager who believed in platooning?
• Target Field weren't such a difficult home run park from alley to alley?

The key moment in Kubel's career came in his first game in the AFL in 2004. He was playing right field. He came in on a fly ball, second baseman Ryan Raburn (Detroit Tigers) came out, they collided, and Kubel's left knee was essentially destroyed.

He missed all of 2005, played in 2006 and hurt the right knee because the left knee wasn't completely sound.

Absent the injury, Kubel might well have pushed Jacque Jones off the roster during the 2004-05 offseason. Instead, he didn't get a clean chance to establish himself until 2007 -- by which time he was 25. Speed was never a big tool for him. The injury made his speed a liability and the biggest reason he has spent much of his career as a designated hitter.

I don't know if the injury could have had any effect on his platoon differential, but he certainly has displayed a significant one. For his career, Kubel is a .288/.342/.490 hitter against right-handers, .239/.313/.365 vs. lefties.

In the hands of a platoon-oriented manager like Earl Weaver or Gene Mauch, Kubel would have seen fewer southpaws, which wouldn't make his accumulative numbers any better but would certainly have improved his percentages. Ron Gardenhire is not a platooner, however.

Kubel had 906 plate appearances in the Metrodome, and hit .294/.346.495 under the Teflon sky. In his 448 plate appearances in Target Field, he hit .254/.321/.403. Big difference.

The park in Phoenix is a good hitter's park, so his numbers should look much better in 2012.

A quick comment

I plan to post for Tuesday morning about Jason Kubel's time with the Twins and his departure, but first, a quick comment on something LaVelle Neal said in his blog today about the Twins offseason:

Kubel, Cuddyer and Joe Nathan are gone and the team hasn't come close to replacing them.

As the late, lamented Henry Morgan said in the guise of Col. Sherman T. Potter, "Horse hockey!"

At least in terms of the outfielders. The Twins have replaced Michael Cuddyer with Josh Willingham and Kubel with Ryan Doumit.

Willingham is a better hitter than Cuddyer, if a bit more limited defensively. The talents have slightly different shapes, but they are equivalent. Doumit and Kubel are very similar hitters: .271/.334/.442 career slash stats for Doumit, .271/.335/.359 for Kubel. Both are better hitters against right-handed pitchers. And while the Twins lost positional flexibility in the Willingham/Cuddyer exchange, they gained it in the Doumit/Kubel switchout.

True, the Twins haven't imported bullpen help. Yet. But Neal said "them," and he is just plain wrong.

Official: Willingham a Twin

I'll write more later. As noted previously, this probably closes the door on Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel.

Arbitration domination

As a "modified Type B" free agent, Matt Capps
does not have to be offered arbitration to bring the
Twins a compensatory draft pick if he signs elsewhere.

Wednesday was the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to their ranked free agents.

The Twins have three ranked free agents: Michael Cuddyer, a "modified" Type A; Jason Kubel, Type B; and Matt Capps, "modified" Type B. These designations, as I understand it, are useful for this offseason only.

A straight Type A -- Albert Pujols, for example -- offered arbitration will cost a signing team draft picks. Six of the free agents originally listed as Type A -- including Cuddyer -- are now in a new category. If they are offered arbitration and sign elsewhere, the jilted team gets two picks, but the signing team doesn't lose picks.

This figures to greatly enhance interest in Cuddyer. Under last winter's rules, a team signing Cuddyer was essentially trading a high draft pick to the Twins. Now the Twins would still get the picks, but the new team isn't losing anything.

The Twins continue to voice interest in retaining Cuddyer, but this development makes it more likely that he'll sign elsewhere.

The Capps situation is better for the Twins. Capps was originally a Type A, and as with Matt Guerrier last winter, the Twins would probably have declined to offer him arbitration rather than risk having him accept. But the new labor deal decouples arbitration from the five modified Type Bs. The Twins will collect a compensatory pick if Capps signs elsewhere without risking arbitration. (Capps is one of five in the new category.)

Bottom line for the Twins: They offered arbitration to Cuddyer and Kubel, did not to Capps. If all three sign elsewhere, the Twins will reap four extra draft picks in June, giving them six of the first 40 or so picks in the draft.

---

The Ryan Doumit signing became official Wednesday.

DL stuff (UPDATED)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Duh. Winning.

A bonehead play from a player with a record for
making bonehead plays.

Assorted notes and comments from a modest three-game winning streak (may it grow longer):

* Alexi Casilla should have been wearing a dunce cap rather than a batting helmet when he got thrown out at home in the third inning Sunday. There's a base coach out there for a reason, kid. Use him. (On the other hand, Steve Liddle's indecisive and late stop sign for Justin Morneau later in the inning wasn't great either.)

*Joe Nathan had a solid 1-2-3 inning to wrap up Saturday's blowout win, complete with two strikeouts and what at least one observer called his best slider of the season for the final pitch.

Somebody asked Ron Gardenhire if sending Nathan to the minors is a possibility, and Gardy said no, Nathan will have to get his innings in the majors.

I'm not sure if the roster rules would allow a demotion. It will be interesting to see how Nathan gets work, though. There's an obvious (and merited) reluctance to use him in game situations, but if he's going to be of use this year he's got to get a regular diet of work.

* Michael Cuddyer is apparently to get fairly regular work at second base for a while. Such an arrangement does make it easier to get Jim Thome in the lineup, and Cuddyer probably isn't a lot worse at the keystone than Luke Hughes, but it's difficult to imagine Gardenhire being happy with what it does to the defense. Of course, since Jim Thome won't play more than three games in a row, Hughes and Matt Tolbert are going to get some action.

* Jason Kubel's game-winning double Sunday came off a left-hander. Let the record show that at this point he has had 28 plate appearances against southpaws, 26 official at-bars, with slash stats of .269/.321/346, which isn't Jacque Jones helpless but still isn't good. Those numbers aren't far off from his career slash stats against lefties (.237/.313/.352).

* A Twins blog griped that Glen Perkins "almost blew" Sunday's game. That's an overly harsh assessment, and I think it stems from a continued fan base mistrust of Perkins. True, the four-pitch walk to Carlos Santana wasn't ideal,  but the following single was a mere popup that Jason Repko lost in the sun. That should have been the second out. It really wasn't a bad outing for Perkins.

More Kubel, less Punto (maybe)

As generally expected, the Twins on Friday exercised their $5.25 million option on Jason Kubel and declined their $5 million option on Nick Punto.

Jason Kubel played 83
games in right field,
16 in left field in 2010.

The Twins may well be overpaying on Kubel. Certainly his 2010 numbers were disappointing (his slash stats were his worst since 2006), he shows no real sign of ever being a truly productive hitter against southpaws and he's never going to be a Gold Glove candidate in the outfield. But he's still on the good side of 30, retaining him leaves one less question mark to deal with in the offseason, and he convinced me that he's at least as capable in the outfield as Michael Cuddyer.

He certainly had fewer problems playing the right field wall at Target Field than Cuddy did.

The Punto situation is a bit more complex. As stated here before, there may (or may not) be a price at which the Twins want to keep Punto. It's pretty obvious that $5 million isn't it.

Nick Punto's 288 plate
appearances were his
fewest since 2004.

A lot depends on what the Twins want to do with their middle infield, and that depends in large part on (a) how big their payroll budget is and (b) how much of it they want to spend on relief pitching vs. middle infield. It would be a lot easier to re-sign Punto at $1.5 million with bonuses for at-bats (just picking a Punto-friendly number out of the air) if they hadn't already committed $1.75 million to Brendan Harris.

The Harris contract is wasted money; there's no market for a bat-first utility infielder who hit .157/.233/.213 in the bigs and .233 in Triple A. Even if the Twins go young and cheap in their middle infield in 2011 -- say with Alexi Casilla at second and Trevor Plouffe at short -- there may be no room for Punto as a reserve, with Matt Tolbert out of options and that money already committed to Harris. Still, it's a safe bet that Ron Gardenhire would rather have Punto than Harris.

For that matter, so would I.

Splitting the difference

Baseball stats always tell us something about what has happened. Using such history to foretell the future — or even to evaluate the present — is tricky.

Remember the gloom and doom earlier this season about the Twins and their lack of success with the bases loaded? Even LaVelle Neal, who really ought to know better, was reading something significant into 65 at-bats.

I thought of that Thursday night when Jason Kubel came up with the bases loaded in the eighth inning. Actually, I thought of a lot of stat splits, because FSN put up a graphic with Kubel's bases-loaded splits, which are impressive. (But they never put up a graphic with his numbers against left-handed pitching, which are considerably less impressive.)

Anyway:

* Twins with the bases loaded this year: 138 plate appearances, 117 official at-bats: .291/.319/.444. That is by far their lowest on-base percentage of any bases occupied split, probably because pitchers really don't want to walk a run in, but it's also one of the highest slugging percentages, probably for the same reason.

(Numbers come from Baseball Reference's team splits page. At the time I was writing this, the page had not been updated with Thursday's results.)

One hundred-seventeen at-bats, 138 plate appearances — these are still small sample sizes. The Twins have been less productive with the bases loaded than when the bases aren't loaded — but not so drastically so that everybody's noticing.

* Jason Kubel with the bases loaded this year: 22 PA, 17 AB, .353/.409/.765, 21 RBIs.

* Kubel, bases loaded, career: 76 PA, 62 AB, .403/.395/.839. Note that his on-base percentage is lower than his batting average — his nine sac flies drive the OPB down. And that's the kind of anomaly one gets with such small sample sizes.

* Kubel versus left-handed pitchers, career: 555 PA, 489 AB, .231/.310/.352. Not quite a full season's worth of chances — in his entire major league career.

* Kubel versus LHP, 2010: 147 PA, 127 AB, .209/.299/.339. Not good. Also not, in and of itself, proof of anything — but combined with his career track record, still suggestive.

Watch Mauer steal signs for Kubel

I'm not a guy who check out Deadspin regularly, but this is interesting stuff. (Thanks to Circling the Bases for pointing it out.)

The subtitles are key.

Addendum: The Twins deny/dismiss the video.

Kubel, Keppel and a win

It's sure nice to have the Twins back after the break, isn't it? And even better to have them return with a win.

A couple of points:

1) Jason Kubel (above) had a home run and a single, and he's now bopping along with a .926 OPS. That's ninth best in the American League, but only third best among left-handed hitters on his own team (Joe Mauer's at 1.060, Justin Morneau's at .972).

Kubel probably would have been at their level earlier had he not blown out his knee back in the fall of 2004. It's taken a long time for his legs to get sound again.

But in one important way, he's not at the Mauer-Morenau level. He's still weak against his fellow southpaws. His slash stats: .356/.409/.663 vs. right-handed pitchers, .194/.256/.250 vs lefties.

2) Bobby Keppel had another strong outing: Six batters faced, six batters retired, three strikeouts. He now has an ERA of 0.63, and while that's obviously unsustainable, he's doing it with lots of ground balls (a GB/FB ratio of 1.86).

We have seen the Twins lean heavily in the past on right-handed pitchers (starters and relievers) who were said to rely on their sinker: Joe Mays and Carlos Silva, Luis Ayala and Brian Bass, to name four. None of them ever got this many ground balls.

It's a thin sample size. He hasn't fully converted me. But he's sure getting the job done.