Outfield options:The minor league invitees

Last spring Shane Robinson made the Opening Day roster as a non-roster invitee to spring training and stuck all season. He's going to try to do the same thing with Cleveland in 2016. 

Meanwhile, the Twins have a handful of outfield hopefuls coming to camp as non-roster guys, including former Twins Joe Benson and Darin Mastroianni, plus veteran Ryan Sweeney.

Sweeney is a former second-round draft pick out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who has nine seasons in the majors on his resume. The Cubs released him on April 7 last year, eating $2 million on his contract, and he didn't play anywhere after that. He's a left-handed hitter with some size, 31 in February, who has gotten a considerable amount of his playing time in center. He has the resume and profile of an established fourth outfielder, but his absence from the game last year is a red flag. It's not so much that the Cubs dropped him; with all their young talent, that was explicable. That nobody else picked him up makes me wonder. Still, if one of these NRIs makes the team, Sweeney's my bet.

Benson I discussed in a previous post. Nothing's happened since to change that assessment. 

Mastroianni spent 2015 in the minors, starting in the Phillies system, then moving to the Nationals. His Twins tenure was marred by a foot-ankle injury that took the edge off his best tool, his speed. 

All three of these guys face the same significant obstacle: lack of opportunity. The Twins have a corps of talented young outfielders at or neat the big league level, and some of them (Oswaldo Arcia and Danny Santana) are out of options. That, I'm sure, is why Robinson is trying his luck elsewhere. This figures to be a tough nut for a non-roster guy to crack.

The return of Joe Benson

The news was short of earthshaking, which is why it was the Rochester Red Wings announcing it rather than the parent Twins:

ROSTER MOVES: The Minnesota Twins have signed OF Joe Benson, C Juan Centeno and LHP Aaron Thompson to minor league contracts.

— Rochester Red Wings (@RocRedWings) November 30, 2015

Centeno is next year's version of Eric Fryer, catching depth. Thompson we saw quite a bit of early in 2015; if he's in next spring's bullpen, I will view it as a bad sign.

And Benson is sort of the prodigal son returning.

Around the time the Twins experenced their big collapse, Benson was viewed as a hot outfield prospect. Big, strong, fast, dripping with tools. But his career ran aground on injuries and his chronic inability to control his strike zone. The Twins waived him after he didn't make the team in 2013; he finished that season in the Rangers system. He spent 2014 in the Marlins system. He split 2015 between independent ball, the Mets system and the Braves system.

He'll turn 28 in March, and he hasn't been back in the majors since his cuppa coffee in September 2011. Despite a little Twitter chatter Monday afternoon about his chances of landing the fourth outfielder job, I don't see much chance for him this year either.

Benson's biggest problem: So much of hitting depends on the batter's ability to decide, practically as the pitcher releases the ball: Strike or ball, what's the velocity, hittable or not. He just doesn't have that ability, and all the other athletic tools are wasted by that flaw.

Pic of the Week

Life's a beach as Joe Benson chases a ball toward
a real estate ad on an outfield fence in Jupiter, Fla.

I might not have selected this photo had it been somebody other than Joe Benson, once a highly-regarded Twins prospect. That it is Benson gives me a reason to talk about him.

Benson's in the Miami Marlins' camp as a non-roster invitee. My take on the Marlins at this point is that it's a franchise one signs up with when there are no other alternatives.

To be fair, Benson (and his agent) may have figured the outfield situation with the Marlins is fluid enough for him to have a shot at making the roster. There's Giancarlo Stanton, who's established as a top flight power hitter; there's Christian Yelich, who's a well-regarded prospect (better regarded than Benson was at the same age); and not a heck of a lot else to get excited about. And given that Stanton is starting to get expensive, and has been critical of Marlins management, he might not be around all year.

But Benson's career is in trouble. The Twins cut him loose last summer with a slash line of .192/.256/.285 in Triple A. The Rangers picked him up and sent him to Double A; .205/.293/.394. The Rangers let him walk this winter and he signed with the Marlins. He's 26 now; time is slipping from him.

His first 11 spring training plate appearances with the Fish: 0-for-11. Small sample size, to be sure, but still ... that's not a good impression he's making.

Benson appears to be an example of the difference between an athlete, which he definitely is, and a major league baseball player.

Joe Benson, failed prospect

Joe Benson during spring training this year, when he
was one of three contenders for the Twins center field job.

Baseball is a difficult sport to master. High draft picks in the other major team sports routinely step immediately into starting lineups; in baseball they universally spend time, often years, in the minor leagues honing their skills.

And some of them, a lot of them, never make it.

That Joe Benson was a highly regarded prospect is obvious; he was the Twins second-round draft pick in 2006 (Chris Parmelee was their first-rounder), and he twice cracked Baseball America's Top 100 prospects, albeit barely (No. 100 in 2011, No. 99 in 2012). 

After his September 2011 callup, it seemed just a matter of time before he became a fixture in the Twins outfield.

Last weekend, the Twins needed a spot on the 40-man roster so they could activate P.J. Walters to make Saturday's start. They got that spot by waiving Benson, who was claimed by the Texas Rangers. 

Benson almost cleared waivers; Texas was the next-to-last team in the progression. Only St. Louis didn't have the opportunity to claim Benson.

Benson's 25 now, and he still possesses the athletic gifts that made him a high draft pick. But he's made almost no progress in the last couple seasons turning his speed and strength into usable baseball skills.

He left Rochester, the Twins' Triple A affiliate, with a slash line of .192/.256/.285; this follows an injury-plagued 2011 in which he combined at four levels for .202/.288/.336. This season he had 10 walks and 51 strikeouts in 165 plate appearances.

The Rangers shipped him down a level, to the Double A Frisco Roughriders of the Texas League, and he hit a home run Sunday in his first game there. He also struck out once. 

He's still young enough to find the ballplayer in the talent. But he has a long way to go, and it was increasingly obvious that it wasn't going to happen with the Twins. I don't blame them for pulling the plug.

Contemplating Joe Benson

Joe Benson reviews his at-bat after a ground-out.

Joe Benson was optioned out Friday, becoming the first -- and probably the last -- of the three center field candidates shipped out of major league camp.

The assumption here remains that Aaron Hicks will be the regular in center and Darrin Mastroianni the fourth outfielder. But today let's consider Benson's status.

Had 2012 gone according to plan, Benson would probably have entered spring training the heir apparent for one of the starting outfield slots. But 2012 was an utter disaster for the 2006 second-round pick: Multiple surgeries, just 312 plate appearances spread among four levels, a .202/.288/.336 combined slash line.

Hicks moved past Benson in the pecking order. So did Mastroianni, and Chris Parmelee and Oswaldo Arcia. The only real reason Benson was seriously in the running for the center field job is that Parmelee and Arcia are limited to outfield corners.

Benson had good moments and bad in camp -- enough bad to take himself out of the running for the job, enough good that he remains a plausible future major leaguer. The physical tools remain; he hasn't turned them into skills yet.

This is his third and final option year. In 2013, the Twins can, if they choose, yo-yo him up and down, majors and minors, with impunity. In 2014, however, he'll be out of options, and if he doesn't make the major league roster he'll have to clear waivers to be sent to the minors.

Benson turned 25 earlier this month. It's not impossible for him to become a major league regular, but time is running thin for him. This figures to be a pivotal year for him. He either forces the Twins (or another major league team) make room for him, or he's probably looking at a few years of scrambling on the edges of rosters.

Contemplating Aaron Hicks

Aaron Hicks unloads his third home run of the game
Thursday. It was his fifth homer in three games.

Aaron Hicks did not play a perfect game on Thursday.

Yes, he hit three home runs (two of them, to be sure, wind-aided). Yes, he added a single and a stolen base. It was a wonderful box score line: 5 4 4 6, 3 HR, 1 SB.

But he also made a bad throw from center field, a throw so off target it was actually handled by the left fielder.

Not perfect. But far better than the play of Joe Benson in the Twins other exhibition on a split-squad Thursday; Benson whiffed three times and lost a fly ball in the sun.

As matters stand — and matters stand a bit more than three weeks from Opening Day, plenty of time for things to change — Hicks is winning the center field competition over Benson and Darin Mastroianni, who has been sidelined by a hamstring strain.

Hicks is compiling stats, but that's the least of it. He's working counts and grinding out at-bats. He's covering ground in the outfield and running the bases well. He's displaying good body language. He's doing the things a player needs to do to justify making the jump from Double A to the majors.

Still, there are those observers who doubt that Hicks will get to skip Triple A. For one major thing, waiting a couple of months to call him up might save the Twins more than $2 million in salary in 2015, and even more in following seasons, by delaying his arbitration eligibility. Pat Reusse wondered Thursday on Twitter what kind of whopper general manager Terry Ryan will come up with to explain Hicks' eventual demotion.

I don't share that skepticism.

It is worth remembering that, after Ryan traded away both Denard Span and Ben Revere this winter, he assured Ron Gardenhire that if Hicks was the best center field candidate this spring, Ryan would not keep him off the roster.

At this point, Hicks is clearly the best center field candidate — not only the best, as I've said here before, in the long run, but the best right now. Unless he suddenly breaks his established character at the plate and develops Benson's lack of strike zone judgment, he'll be the center fielder on Opening Day.

Take and rake: Hicks and Benson

Aaron Hicks greets Ryan Doumit at home plate
after Doumit's fourth-inning home run Wednesday.

My Monday print column was partly, maybe mostly, about the importance of plate discipline in some of the Twins spring training competitions. Two of the players mentioned specifically were Aaron Hicks and Joe Benson.

Hicks appears this spring to be living up to his minor league reputation as a patient hitter. The radio boys on Wednesday (Corey Provus and Dick Bremer; no Dan Gladden for a few days, apparently) repeatedly praised his fourth inning at-bat, in which he fell behind 0-2, fouled some pitches off, worked the count to 2-2 and then lashed a double.

Deep counts leading to walks or well-struck balls have been fairly frequent for Hicks, an indication that he's not becoming impatient now that he has an opportunity to win a big-league job. And that's very much a point in his favor.

Benson's track record is the opposite -- few walks, plenty of strikeouts. On Tuesday, Benson homered in his first time up, then drew a walk the next time up. So far, so good, right? Then he struck out the next three times.

Benson entered Wednesday's game about halfway through and came up twice -- and drew two walks.

In a game in which the Twins had 17 hits and 12 runs, Benson's walks are easy to overlook. And three walks in two games isn't proof of anything, any more than three hits would have been. But considering how much his poor plate discipline has hamstrung Benson's rise, it's a good sign.

Benchmarks for 2013: Center field

The Twins 2013 spring training camp, as in 2008, will feature a three-way competition for the center field job.

One significant difference between the two: This time there is a clear "end game," a candidate who figures to wind up with the job. The question is more when it happens than who.

It strikes me that there are strong parallels between the three candidates this year and those of 2008:

Darin Mastroianni is Jason Pridie, or at least a right-handed version of same. Pridie fell rather quickly out of contention for the job in 2008; he was seen as more suitable for a fourth outfielder role than as a regular. So far, Pridie hasn't accomplished that either.

Joe Benson got considerable playing time in
September 2011 and was rated the second
best prospect in the Minnesota farm system
by Baseball America that winter. 

Mastroianni is very likely to be on the 2013 major league roster. There's a role for him as a bench player. But his chance of opening the season as the regular in center relies more on the unreadiness for the other two candidates than on his own skills.

Joe Benson is Carlos Gomez -- right-handed hitters who struggle to translate their obvious athletic gifts to usable baseball skills. Gomez won the spring training competition in 2008 but ultimately lost the job to Denard Span.

Gomez had the advantage of being the best shot at immediate payoff in the Johan Santana trade; Benson is in danger of falling out of relevance after a dismal 2012 in which he hit .179 in Triple A, .184 in Double A and had wrist surgery.

Aaron Hicks parallels Span: First-round draft picks with notable plate discipline. Hicks is a switch-hitter but had, at least until last season, struggled as a left-handed hitter. Hicks as a better throwing arm than Span.

Hicks has this advantage over the other two: He projects as a legitimate top-of-the-order hitter. Mastroianni is unlikely to hit well enough to be an everyday outfielder; Benson's on-base percentage is unlikely to ever be above average. I'll delve into this in more detail in a later benchmark post, but the Twins really need somebody in an up-the-middle position to hit in one of the two two lineup slots.

But Hicks hasn't played a game above Double A, and his rise through the farm system has been a painstaking one.

The endgame

Hicks is the guy the Twins want to wind up with the job -- not just playing center field, but hitting leadoff. The question facing Ron Gardenhire and Co. this spring is: How soon can he handle it?

Success in this area is, at the least, having Hicks secure in the centerfield/leadoff job by September.

At the center field of it all

Joe Benson hit .179 in
Triple A in 2012 and
.184 in Double A.

Denard Span: Gone. Ben Revere: Gone.

The Twins now have a hole where their center fielders used to be. And much as was the case when Torii Hunter fled as a free agent after the 2007 season, the idea appears to be to let three unestablished players fight it out in spring training.

In the spring of 2008, it was Carlos Gomez, Jason Pridie and Span. In the spring of 2013, it will be Joe Benson, Aaron Hicks and Darin Mastroianni.

The Twins, to put it bluntly, chose the wrong guy in 2008. Span demonstrated in spring training that he was a true leadoff hitter, a man who could get on base. In on exhibition game against the Yankees, Span drew three walks; he probably took more pitches in that one game than Gomez did all spring.

Darin Mastroianni stole 21 bases in 24 attempts.

The Twins went with Gomez instead. It took almost half a season for the organization to get Span up from the minors and into the leadoff spot, and the Twins wound up out of the playoffs by the margin of a Game 163. It was a costly misreading of the talent, perhaps set up by the fact that both Pridie and Gomez were new to the organization.

This time around, there is greater familiarity with the three candidates. Mastroianni spent much of last season on the big-league squad; Hicks and Benson have spent their entire professional careers in the organization.

Each has known flaws. Mastroianni — fast but lacking in power — profiles as a fourth outfielder, not as a regular. Benson, who had a miserable, injury-riddled 2012 and is rehabbing from knee surgery, is a suberb athlete who has never really demonstrated command of the strike zone. Hicks, a switch-hitter, struggled for years as a left-handed hitter; only last season, at Double-A New Britain, has he performed well against right-handed pitching.

I believe any of the three can handle the job defensively. The question is who can hit.

My take: Hicks is, at least in the long-term, the favorite, and I suspect the Twins would really like to see the former first round pick come into camp and seize the job. Unlike Benson, he projects as a leadoff man; unlike Mastroianni, he projects as a regular.

But there's a part of me that favors the notion of handing the job to Benson. Sink or swim, kid.  It's time to see what you've got.

I've grown skeptical of Benson's ability to turn his tools into skills. And I suspect that 2013 represents his last best chance to live up to the expectations. Whether he hits or not, I would expect Hicks to come up in mid-season — either to replace Benson in the lineup, or to fill the gap left when either Josh Willingham or Justin Morneau is traded.

Imagining the Twins outfield without Span

Denard Span is hitting .280/.344/.384 this year.

The metaphorical dam holding back the anticipated flood of pre-deadline trades appeared to break Monday afternoon. None, however, involved the Twins.

One of the names often bandied about -- last summer and this -- as trade bait is that of Denard Span, the Minnesota center fielder and leadoff hitter. I'm not going to argue that he should or shouldn't be traded -- the answer to that depends on who the Twins get in such a trade.

No, my thinking is along these lines: If Span is traded, and if the Twins don't get an outfielder who clearly should be playing as part of the deal (they probably wouldn't), what would the Twins outfield look like the rest of the way?

It's easy and obvious enough to say that Josh Willingham would remain in left field and that Ben Revere would shift over to center (and move into the leadoff spot as well). Right field is the question.

Option A: Chris Parmelee. He's spent most of his sporadic major league time at first base, but he's played almost as much right field in the minors as first.

As the roster is currently constructed, there's no real use for him; Justin Morneau/Joe Mauer/Ryan Doumit are splitting first base, DH and catcher, and Revere has taken over right field. But Parmelee has hit in Triple A (.302/.446/.510), and it makes sense to find some PT for him in the majors.


Drawback: Parmelee's not going to help the pitching staff much in right. Like Willingham, he'll have to hit to justify his lineup spot. 


Option B: Darin Mastroianni. The opposite of Parmelee: A right-handed hitter who is a good defensive outfielder, very fast, not a lot of power.


If Ron Gardenhire were so inclined, a Mastroianni-Parmelee platoon might make some sense. (It would also, as somebody -- I think Kirsten Brown -- said on Twitter a while back, sound like an Olive Garden entree.)


Drawback: Mastroianni is probably better suited to the fourth outfielder role than a regular's job.


Option C: Move Trevor Plouffe to right, with (most likely) Danny Valencia getting a fresh shot at third base.


Drawback: Valencia hasn't really earned a return. He entered Monday hitting .249/.287/.399 for Rochester.


Option D: Somebody now playing at Double A: Joe Benson, Oswaldo Arcia, Rene Tosoni.


Drawbacks: If Valencia hasn't earned a return, that goes double for Benson and Tosoni.  Arcia's been in New Britain about a month, and I can't see the Twins pushing him up two levels so quickly. If the Twins do go for one of these guys, however, I'd like to be Arcia.

Contemplating Joe Benson

Joe Benson's nine major league hits (entering
Saturday's play) include five doubles and a triple,
giving him a slugging percentage of .552.

Joe Benson has started every game since getting his September callup. He started by going 0-for-11 in his first three games with the Twins. He entered Friday's game 5-for-25 (having, obviously, gone 5-for-14); on Friday he went 4-for-4 with a triple and a pair of doubles.

And suddenly he's hitting .310. Ah, the wonders of small sample sizes.

Athletically, he's prime meat: A right fielder's throwing arm with center field speed (Dan Gladden said during spring training that he thought Benson is faster than Ben Revere), he also has power.

Benson had trouble in the lower rungs of the farm system with pitch selection — few walks and lots of strikeouts. But this year he increased his walks, cut down on the strikeouts and raised his batting average. (Benson's minor league stats here).

But he was repeating Double A this year. Benson has a pattern of struggling initially with each step up the ladder. He opened 2010 at Double A, struggled, was returned to High A, then moved back up to New Britain.

It's that pattern that makes it unlikely that the Twins would plan on Benson for 2012. Skipping Triple A completely is plausible if the player is truly dominating Double A, but Benson's walk-to-strikeout rate isn't that good. It's passable, but not dominating.

And if Benson isn't ready for a regular outfield job in 2012, it becomes a lot trickier for the Twins to let both Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel leave as free agents this winter.