Notes, quotes and comment

Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza joke about wearing their
caps backward during their Hall of Fame presser Thursday.

No surprise here: Ken Griffey Jr. said his Hall of Fame plaque will have a Mariners cap. Also not really a surprise: He says the cap will be worn in the traditional manner, brim forward. Junior, of course, was known for wearing his cap backwards during batting practice, and there was some chatter about having it backwards on his plaque.

Mike Piazza will have a Mets cap. There's a pretty good argument that it should be a Dodgers cap, but neither would be a mistake.

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The three naysayers on Griffey have yet to fess up, so the current assumption is that they weren't skipping him to game the ballot. Whatever their reason, I'm not particularly wound up by the mystery; they didn't keep Griffey from going in.

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A Ken Griffey factoid I love: Both he and his father, Ken Griffey -- the right fielder on the Big Red Machine of the 1970s and a darn good player himself -- were born in Donora, Pennsylvania. Which makes the elder Griffey the third best left-handed hitting outfielder born in Donora.

Who else hailed from there? Stan Musial. That's a pretty good outfield for a town best known for a killer smog.

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Former Twins outfielder Denard Span signed with the Giants: three years, $31 million. There were some Twins fans dreaming of him as the fourth outfielder, but he was looking for a starting job, and $10 million a year is not reserve outfielder money.

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Former Twins catcher Josmil Pinto got designated for assignment this week, this time by the Brewers. The Twins waived him early in the offseason, and the Padres claimed him, only to waive him themselves and see the Brewers claim him.

My guess is that his merry-go-round will end without a 40-man roster spot, but there are apparently a number of teams hoping to be the one that gets him through waivers and onto their Triple A roster. For his sake, I hope it's an American League team, because most of his value, if he has any, figures to be as a designated hitter.

Good-bye, Josmil

Josmil Pinto spent
2015 in Rochester
and on the disabled
list.

The Twins have moved rather aggressively to reshape their catching options for 2016.

Kurt Suzuki is still around, of course. But Chris Herrmann was traded to Arizona, Eric Fryer was outrighted and signed with St. Louis, and Josmil Pinto was claimed by San Diego. That's three catchers with major league experience cleared off the roster -- and one, John Ryan Murphy, added -- in roughly five weeks.

Pinto's departure had three causes: First, he isn't much of a defensive catcher, and it's not for lack of effort. Second, he was, by my count, sidelined three times by concussions last season. And three, there didn't figure to be a role for him on the roster. There are plenty of other DH options.

That he was claimed by a National League team suggests that not everybody is convinced that his defensive issues negate his batting. San Diego is a tough park to hit in, so even if Pinto gets playing time with the Padres, his numbers may not impress anybody.

The Padres have Derek Norris as their No. 1 catcher, and he's pretty solid. Austin Hedges was the primary backup, and he hit just .168, so there is an opportunity for Pinto to make the club. But he's one of four catchers on the 40-man roster.  He's got his limitations, and he's got competition.

Setting the stage for Rule 5

Friday was the deadline for teams to protect their current minor leaguers from the Rule 5 draft by putting them on the 40-man major league roster. The Twins elevated seven prospects -- and lost two players with some major league time, catcher Josmil Pinto and right-hander A.J. Achter, on waivers, Pinto to the Padres and Achter to the Phillies.

I'll probably write something in more detail about the Pinto move next week. Achter is a marginal reliever who had another good season in Triple A last year -- he has a 2.69 ERA in 99 Triple A appearances -- who might be able to wander into a decent major league season if given a chance, but lacks the dominant pitch to force a career. Good luck to both of them.

The seven additions include several pitchers who emphatically have that dominant pitch. I see four categories in the seven:

Hard-throwing right-handed relievers: J.T. Chargois and Yorman Landa.

Left-handed Triple A starters: Pat Dean and Taylor Rogers.

Left-handers with Tommy John surgery: Mason Melotakis and Randy Rosario.

Outfielder: Adam Brett Walker.

Landa and Rosario spent 2015 at low A Cedar Rapids, and I saw both pitch during my handful of Kernels games last August, Rosario as a starter and Landa as a reliever. I didn't write about Landa, but he did show some serious velocity; I wrote instead about Luke Bard, who wasn't put on the 40 and is eligible for Rule 5. Anyway -- while Landa and Rosario will be in major league camp, I don't think the Twins will elevate either to the majors this year.

Dean and Rogers are slightly surprising protects to me. I don't see either as a particularly likely candidate to ever be starters for the Twins. There are certainly a lot of rotation guys ahead of them.

Walker's protection illustrates the importance of the power tool. ABW has serious power -- and, like Oswaldo Arcia, little else to recommend him. I'm not particularly enthused about Walker's chances.

Melotakis missed 2015 with Tommy John surgery while Chargois returned from two years on the shelf. These two guys each have pitched in Double A and have realistic chances to be part of the reconstructed 2016 bullpen, although I doubt the Twins would graduate Melotakis in particular to the majors out of spring training.

The Twins now have 38 player on their 40-man roster. One of the open slots is slated for Byung Ho Park; the other may well go to a Rule 5 selection.

Notes, quotes and comment

Catching up on a few items from the past week:

Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press had this piece on Kurt Suzuki's skepticism about pitch-framing stats. The Twins catcher had so much skepticism about sabermetric evaluation that Berardino couldn't fit it all into that story and spilled it over into this blog post.

And you know what? I don't care that Suzuki hasn't read up on WAR or walked through the math that insists that the very best players (Mike Trout for example) account for only a handful of wins. That's essentially useless information for a player. It will matter if he harbors ambitions of someday having a baseball job that involves player evaluation, but for what he's doing now, it's immaterial.

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Lynn Henning of the Detroit News had this analysis of the challenges facing the Tigers' new general manager, Al Avila.

Noteworthy in my eyes is his assertion about who would replace Brad Ausmus as manager should Avila make a change:

The expectation would be Avila and owner Mike Ilitch will opt for 57-year-old Ron Gardenhire, the former Twins general who wants to manage again, and who knows the division intimately.

Gardy would certainly (as Henning says in the piece) represent a return to the old-school approach to managing -- more seat-of-the-pants, less use of analytics. It would certainly run counter to the overall trend.

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Josmil Pinto, sidelined for much of the season with concussion issues, is playing again. He's getting some at-bats as a designated hitter in the Gulf Coast League, the Twins' lowest stateside affiliate, and he's not expected to get behind the plate again this year.

I don't expect to see him in the majors this year.

Goodbye, Stauffer (and other notes)

Tim Stauffer was designated for assignment after Wednesday's game, with Michael Tonkin recalled to take his place.

This is essentially what I expected the Twins to do last month when Casey Fien came off the disabled list. Instead, they shipped Tonkin back to Triple A and kept the veteran around without any real purpose. Stauffer pitched five times since coming off the disabled list May 21, and last appeared on June 6. Paul Molitor really didn't want to use him in a winnable game, and I can't blame the manager for that.

The odd thing, really, is that the argument for having Stauffer on the roster is better right now than it has been at anytime since spring training began. He hit camp with diminished velocity, and now he's almost back to his accustomed speed.

Not that the argument for Stauffer was ever that good. His 3.87 career ERA before coming to the Twins was greatly enhanced by the San Diego park (career ERA in Petco Park: 3.07) and the lack of the DH in the National League. He never should have been signed to a guaranteed contract.

Recalling Tonkin keeps the Twins at 13 pitchers. One has to wonder if the Twins will ever get back to 12 pitchers and if so, which one gets the ax? Neither Aaron Thompson nor Brian Duensing would seem to have that firm a grip on their jobs, but they are left-handed, and I suspect Molitor would rather have two LOOGYs than one.

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Josmil Pinto went on the concussion disabled list for Triple A Rochester. The catcher/DH (or maybe it's the other way around) suffered a concussion in spring training, and even though he passed the protocol and was cleared to play, there's been a suspicion that he was still feeling the effects. It's unclear is there's a specific incident that led to this sidelining, or if this is the spring training injury remanifesting itself.

Either way, this is not good for Pinto.

The opening roster

Josmil Pinto lost out
on the backup catcher
job to Chris Herrmann,
at least for now.

The Twins effectively settled their Opening Day roster Thursday:

• Outfielder Shane Robinson was offically added to the 40-man roster;
• Catcher Josmil Pinto was optioned to Triple-A;
• Catcher Eric Fryer was reassigned to Triple A, and fellow non-roster invitee infielder Doug Bernier was told he will be after the exhibition schedule is over.

In theory, I would have preferred to see Pinto on the roster than Eduardo Nunez, but there are variables that I don't have a handle on: the effects of Pinto's concussion, how comfortable Paul Molitor is with the idea of using Eduardo Escobar as a part-time outfielder, how competent Pinto currently is behind the plate.

Here's how Escobar figures into this: The Twins default starting outfield figures to be Oswaldo Arcia in left. the Jordan Schafer-Robinson platoon in center and Torii Hunter in right. (Those four names are also the four "true" outfielders on the roster.) The Twins figure to face Chris Sale, very good lefty, a week from Saturday. Hunter and Robinson are right-handed; Arcia and Schafer are left-handed. If Molitor wants to get both the lefties out of the lineup against Sale, a non-outfielder has to play left. That won't be backup catcher Chris Herrmann, who is a decent enough outfielder, because he's left-handed too. Escobar is a switch-hitter, Nunez hits right, so either fits that part of the bill. But which, if either, do you really want in the outfield?

The presence of Kennys Vargas also works against Pinto, because Vargas ties up the DH spot. I don't know that Vargas is really a better hitter than Pinto, but the Twins are operating on that basis.To get at-bats in the majors, Pinto has to catch, and while he is said to have improved behind the plate, he's probably still not good.

The current issue of Baseball America, in that light, has a interesting piece about the new era of catcher instruction, with the use of advanced stats to measure pitch framing and high-end pitching machines to provide receiving reps on major-league quality pitches. (I'd link to the piece, but it's subscriber-only.) The story is in the context of the Cubs' efforts to rebuild Kyle Schwarber, an outstanding hitting prospect whose catching skills (or lack of same) may eventually force him to a different position. I don't know if the Twins are doing the same things with Pinto. I hope they are.

The roster moves to come

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twins by position: Designated hitter

Josmil Pinto: A DH
trying to be a catcher.

The Twins have long been reluctant to have a full-time designated hitter. The preference has been to rotate several players through the job, giving regulars a break from defensive chores while keeping their bats in the lineup. Jason Kubel came close in some seasons, but he generally got steady doses of outfield time.

The rotation system was particularly useful when Joe Mauer was the regular catcher. Catcher is a brutal position, and few last long catching 140 games and up a year. Having a rotation system at DH allowed Ron Gardenhire to give Mauer a weekly break behind the plate while keeping his bat in the lineup.

Last year, with Mauer now a first baseman, the Twins dabbled in a full-time DH for the first time since they dumped David Ortiz -- first with Kendrys Morales, and after dumping the veteran on Seattle, with Kennys Vargas.

Vargas enters camp as the presumptive favorite for the job. But he faded rather sharply in September -- August batting average .308, September-October batting average .228 -- as he displayed a rather surprising lack of command of his strike zone.

That was a point of emphasis for him in winter ball, and we'll see if his focus on patience carries over this spring.

If Vargas fails -- and there are those in the scouting community who doubt he can hit enough for the job -- the Twins have another option in Josmil Pinto, a "catcher" whose defensive chops are a genuine handicap. Vargas had, in his two months with the Twins, an OPS+ of 115 in 234 plate appearances; Pinto's OPS+ in 280 major league PAs over two seasons is 118.

Pinto may indeed be a better hitter than Vargas. But the lure of a good-hitting catcher is strong, and the Twins are less likely to let Pinto simply slot into a bat-only slot simply on that basis. Vargas will get the first crack at the job. But if he looks like the Vargas of September, the Twins shouldn't be reluctant to try Pinto in the DH role. They certainly don't seem inclined to trust him behind the plate.

And if they both fail, there's also Oswaldo Arcia, who seems better suited to DH than the outfield.

The Twins by position: Catcher

Kurt Suzuki had a career
year hitting last season and
parlayed that into a two-year
contract extension.

I saw an item this weekend about the Arizona Diamondbacks' catching situation. Miguel Montero had been their No. 1 catcher since 2009, but his offense has been down the past two seasons, he has a sizable contract and he'll turn 32 this summer; the Snakes traded him earlier this winter to the Cubs for a couple of minor leaguers.

Now they're looking for catching help, and not getting anywhere. They have two on their 40-man roster: last's year's backup Tuffy Goeswisch, a 31-year-old with all of 55 games on his major league resume, and Oscar Hernandez, a Rule 5 draftee out of the Tampa Bay organization who was left off the Rays' 40 after repeating Low A ball.

It's not a promising duo. Yet when the Twins outrighted Eric Fryer -- their primary backup catcher for most of 2014 -- last month, Arizona didn't claim him. Presumably they didn't see Fryer as any sort of upgrade over Goeswisch or Hernandez, and certainly not as a guy they could start 125 games behind the plate.

Catcher is a unique position, the most supremely specialized of the non-pitching positions. Kurt Suzuki, the Twins No.1 catcher these days, doesn't do any one thing superbly, but he does everything well enough. If Suzuki stays healthy, the Twins are OK behind the plate.

Behind him ... well, there's Josmil Pinto, who hits better than Suzuki but is regarded as a poor receiver, and there's Chris Herrmann, who hits left-handed and has some positional versatility. In fact, the Twins list Herrmann on their 40-man roster as an outfielder.

Paul Molitor should already know this, but Herrmann doesn't hit well enough to merit sustained playing time in the outfield. If he makes the team, it's as a backup to Suzuki. Pinto hits well enough to merit sustained time at designated hitter, but Ron Gardenhire was reluctant to play him there without a third catcher on the roster, and now Kennys Vargas appears to have the first crack at the DH job.

And Fryer, while not on the 40, remains in the organization and remains the superior defensive option as Suzuki's caddy.

Were Gardenhire still the manager, I would assume Fryer will be the backup catcher. Who makes the roster figures to tell us something about Molitor's priorities -- how he balances hitting potential and defensive skills, and how he views the importance of the platoon advantage.

Josmil Pinto, catcher

Trevor Plouffe celebrates Tuesday's win
with catcher Josmil Pinto.

Josmil Pinto can hit.

Can Josmil Pinto catch?

This has long been the issue for the 25-year-old Venezuelan. Managers aren't opposed to good-hitting catchers, of course, but they tend to prefer the backstops who can help get the pitcher through the game. Pinto's ability to do that -- pitch calling, receiving, throwing -- is not well-regarded. 

He was behind the plate Tuesday night, working with Kyle Gibson. Gibson, as we know, is a sinker-slider guy whose sinker, when it's on, moves a lot and when it's off is not particularly well commanded. Which adds up to, he's not a particularly easy pitcher to catch. 

And sure enough, Gibson was charged with a wild pitch. Pinto has now caught 218 innings this year. In that time, there have been four passed balls and 10 wild pitches. 0.58 per nine innings. This is a rather high rate; in comparison, Kurt Suzuki has been involved in three passed balls and 31 wild pitches in 991.2 innings, just under 0.31 per nine innings.

Tuesday's wild pitch was a rather goofy play; A third strike that Pinto didn't catch cleanly and then didn't throw to first to complete the out. Since the ball bounced before reaching the catcher, the scorer charged it to Gibson, but the outcome was clearly Pinto's fault.

For the season, Pinto has a donut on base stealers: He's 0-for-19. The Diamondbacks didn't attempt a steal Tuesday night, but Gibson did pick off a runner.

One of the criticisms of Pinto as a receiver has been that he moves around too much, not presenting a stable target (particularly with the glove) for the pitcher. That didn't seem to be an issue Tuesday night to my eyes, and certainly the Twins pitchers weren't struggling to get pitches called strikes.

It was but one game, and a decidedly amateur set of eyes watching Pinto during it, but he didn't look terrible behind the plate Tuesday night. But then, I want to have hope that he can be a useful catcher. I'm not at all confident that the Twins think that's possible. The thing is, they don't seem to have any other idea for him.

A night at Target Field

Oswaldo Arcia was charged with an
error in the fourth inning on a ball hit
by Kole Calhoun that resulted in a run
for the visiting Angels.

Here's one bright side to the Twins' low status: Good tickets can be had reasonably on the resale market.

My wife and I darted up to Target Field with lower-deck home plate box seats. We didn't make it through the entire 10-inning, four-and-a-half hour game; it may have been a Friday night, but there was a long drive home and things to do today too. So we missed Trevor Plouffe's game-tying double with two outs in the ninth -- and Jared Burton surrendering the winning run in the 10th.

A few observations, on and off the playing field:

* Danny Santana got the start at shortstop. In the second inning, with a man on first, Brennan Boesch hit a one-hopper just to Santana's right; he tried, a bit awkwardly I thought, to backhand the ball only to have it go off his glove. I marked it an error on my scorecard; the official scorer ruled it a hit.

Still, it was a play I expect a major league shortstop to make; indeed, it was a ball I expect a major league shortstop to turn into a double play. The failure to make that play resulted in a run.

That was the extent of Santana's defensive involvement for four innings. He had four routine plays in the fifth and sixth inning and cleaned them all up.

*Aaron Hicks had a pair of two-out RBI base hits -- left-handed, his weaker side. He's hitting over .200 now.

*Josmil Pinto had a pair of doubles and a walk and scored twice (on those Hicks hits). He also had a passed ball and saw a pair of Angels steal second, although I'm inclined to blame the pitchers more for those steals. Terry Ryan said when they recalled Pinto that his defense had improved; it's hard for me to see the difference.

* Oswaldo Arcia had an impressive home run in the second inning. And in the fourth inning he had an outfielding misadventure (see photo) that cost the Twins a run. Actually, he had another misplay of a ball off the wall in the first inning -- rule a triple rather than a double and error -- that led to yet another run. The slugger giveth and he taketh away, and on the whole in this game, he gaveth too much to the Angels.

* Ricky Nolasco wasn't particularly good, but as you've noticed already, his defense didn't help him much. He went five innings and allowed three runs, two earned; with spotless defense behind him, no runs score. He struck out five and only walked one.

That's the glass half full. On the other hand, he didn't have a one-two-three inning (the fourth would have been had Arcia corralled the Calhoun drive), and the Angels had the leadoff man on in four of the five innings, so he spent most of his time pitching out of the stretch. The misplays didn't put all those leadoff men on, they just moved them along the route home.

* Matt Shoemaker, who started for the Halos, has had a fine season (14-4, 3.14 coming into the game with 115 strikeouts in 117 innings), but he struggled to throw strikes in this one. He threw a lot of offspeed and breaking stuff and only got through four innings. I wasn't impressed, but he's obviously been better.

* This game marked my first encounter with the much-praised rib tips from the Butcher and the Boar stand (near Gate 34). They are not over-rated. Between that and my addiction to the Kramarczuk bratwurst, my carnivore cravings were more than satisfied.

The September call-ups

Doug Bernier, who
spent half the 2013
season with the Twins,
was named MVP of
the 2014 Red Wings.

The Twins on Monday morning announced eight callups for the expanded September roster, names familiar and otherwise: A.J. Achter, Doug Bernier, Logan Darnell, Chris Herrmann, Aaron Hicks, Lester Oliveros, Josmil Pinto and Michael Tonkin. They were all with Triple A Rochester, which was eliminated Sunday from playoff contention, and will join the Twins today.

As surmised here earlier, three of them -- Achter, Bernier and Oliveros -- had to be added to the 40-man roster. Of the eight -- nine if you want to count Aaron Thompson, called up during the weekend -- only Achter has never appeared in the majors before.

This collection is heavy with minor league veterans and light on true prospects.The Twins did not call up anybody who is to be first-time eligible for the Rule 5 draft and thus likely to be added to the 40 early in the offseason. That would include Eddie Rosario, who didn't play well enough this year to be rewarded with a month of major league pay and perks but is too good a prospect to expose, and Alex Meyer, who went on the minor league disabled list during the weekend.

Lester Oliveros
will audition this
month for a bullpen
role next year.

The most interesting of the nine, as I look to 2015, are Hicks, Oliveros and Tonkin.

Hicks needs to have a strong September, as I see it. He's twice won jobs in spring training only to flop in the regular season, and I can't see a good reason for the Twins to let him do that a third time.

Oliveros and Tonkin are a pair of hard-throwing righties, either of whom might be a successor to Jared Burton (whose contract is expiring) in a set-up role next year. Oliveros, as you might recall, came to the Twins in the Delmon Young trade in 2011; he's had some injury issues and has returned from Tommy John surgery. (Achter might be put in this group, but his stuff is a notch behind the others.)

Chris Herrmann hit
.304 for Rochester
but just .143 with
the Twins.

Darnell and Thompson are showcasing themselves as potential replacements for Brian Duensing and Caleb Thielbar as lefty specialists.

Pinto and Herrmann ... I think their purpose is to lighten the load on Kurt Suzuki, who has taken a beating behind the plate in recent days. Theoretically either could push out Eric Fryer as the backup catcher in 2015, but Fryer is the superior receiver, and a reliable backstop seems to be Ron Gardenhire's preference in that role. (Assuming, of course, that Gardy is back next year.)

Herrmann would have a better chance at a backup job with a manager inclined to use the backup catcher in platoon situations -- meaning, to look to give Suzuki his days off against right-handed pitchers and fit the left-handed Herrmann in then. Gardenhire is not such a manager.

Demoting Pinto

The Twins played a night game Tuesday; Kurt Suzuki caught. They played a game about 13 hours later; Suzuki caught again.

When the No. 1 catcher catches a day game after a night game, it's a serious sign that the manager isn't enthused about his No. 2 catcher.

The Twins announced after Wednesday's game that they were demoting Josmil Pinto. A corresponding move will be made Friday (saving a day of service time/major league pay). Presumably the corresponding move will be bringing up Eric Fryer, since Chris Herrmann has been out of action for about a week.

This move was pretty much inevitable with the signing of Kendrys Morales. In April, Pinto was essentially the regular designated hitter. His at-bats in that role dried up when the Twins demoted Herrmann, who never actually caught an inning for the Twins but still served as a security blanket. Without regular at-bats, Pinto's hitting tailed off in his sporadic starts. Worse for his chances of remaining on the big league roster, his defensive shortcomings became ever more apparent.

I argued at one point that restoring a third catcher would be worthwhile if it got Pinto back into the DH role. That proposition is now moot; Morales is the DH.

I'm not sure that a Triple A stint is going to do much for Pinto as a receiver. It seems likely Terry Steinbach, as a catching instructor, is better than the Rochester staff. But then, I suspect that if Pinto hasn't mastered the intricacies of catching by now, in his ninth season of pro ball, it may not happen. Still, a steady dose of playing time might get Pinto's bat going again.

Right now, it's difficult to blame Ron Gardenhire for leaning on Suzuki. He's not only superior defensively to Pinto, he's been surprisingly productive as a hitter.

At some point, however, Suzuki is likely to stop hitting .300. When that slump comes, it would be nice to have Pinto ready to hit again. At this point, he's a bit of a mess at the plate and behind it.

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.

Catching on: Kurt Suzuki and Josmil Pinto

Kurt Suzuki has been a far better hitter this season than anyone could have imagined. The veteran backstop, signed for his defense, is bopping along at a .312/.378/.416 clip. My preseason expectation — that the Twins would need to catch Josmil Pinto for his offense — is looking pretty foolish at the season's quarter pole.

Kurt Suzuki applies the tag to Adam Jones of Baltimore
to complete a strikeout earlier this season.

Not that Pinto has been a slouch at the plate himself. Pinto's OPS+ — On-base Plus Slugging, normalized to league context with 100 being average — has actually been slightly better than Suzuki's: Pinto's is 125, and Suzuki's is 123.

But Pinto is regarded as a raw receiver at best. The Twins broadcasters have raved all season about Suzuki's skills at blocking pitches in the dirt.

Last September I offered this examination of the 2013 Twins catchers and their abilities (or problems) at preventing passed balls and wild pitches. As I said at the time, the two events have the same outcome on the game: base runner(s) advances, or a batter reaches base on a strikeout. Passed balls are blamed on the catcher, wild pitches on the pitcher — but as the praise aimed at Suzuki suggests, a good catcher can prevent wild pitches a lesser one will allow.

Suzuki so far this year has caught 269.1 innings. He has not been charged with a passed ball, but there have been 10 wild pitches with him behind the plate, .33 per nine innings, or about one every three games. That's a better-than-league rate (.35 entering Monday), but not up to Joe Mauer's career standard (.27).

Pinto: 112 innings caught, five wild pitches and three passed balls. That's .40 WP/9, but .64 WP+PB/9.

Pinto is allowing a wild pitch or passed ball about twice as often as Suzuki. That certainly fits the belief that Suzuki is the superior defensive catcher.

There are complications, of course, and one complication that may ultimately make directly comparing their numbers futile is that it appears that Ron Gardenhire is going to make Pinto the personal catcher for Sam Deduno, who is probably the Twins' most difficult pitcher to catch.

Campaign reform

Chris Colabello, write-in
candidate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kurt Suzuki and other catchers

Kurt Suzuki strokes a two-run double Monday.

Kurt Suzuki hit second in the Twins lineup on Opening Day, and for one day, at least, it worked. The veteran catcher singled and doubled and had all three of the Twins's RBIs.

Good for him. The fact remains that he has complied more than 3,200 major league plate appearances and has a career OPS-plus that is 14 percent below league average. He doesn't belong in the upper half of a major league lineup.

My fear is that Ron Gardenhire will remember this one game of production and base the lineups for the next month on it.

---

The Twins had a chance late in the game to get back in it. They were down three going into the eighth, and Aaron Hicks led off with a double. With Pedro Florimon due up against the lefty Chris Sale, Gardenhire sent up a pinch-hitter — not hard-hitting catcher Josmil Pinto, but light-hitting Eduardo Escobar.

Really.

Escobar struck out (I'm tempted to say of course), and while Suzuki later drove in Hicks, the potential rally went no further. Pinto never got into the game.

Keeping Jason Bartlett over Chris Herrmann is a curious decision on the face of it. If this kind of player use is the result, the roster decision looks even worse.

---

Remember 2011, when Joe Mauer missed about half the season and the catching load in his absence was carried by the duo of Drew Butera and Rene Rivera? Yeah, you were trying to forget that; those two make Suzuki's numbers look good.

Well, Butera made the Dodgers roster; he's the backup to A.J. Ellis. And Rivera not only made the Padres roster, he started their opener Sunday night.

Never underestimate how much teams value defensive skills at catcher.

---

The Washington Nationals were (are) not only counting on Wilson Ramos (once the Twins' top prospect) as their regular catcher, but as their cleanup hitter as well.

The oft-injured backstop didn't make it through Monday's opener, however. He left in the seventh inning with a hand injury, and the Washington Post reported he fractured a bone. The Nats announced, however, that a preliminary X-ray showed no fracture. More exams are expected.

One week, 14 cuts to go

There was a fake report Sunday night that Vance Worley had been returned to the Phillies.

I suppose part of the reason it got some play on Twitter is that it's believable, even expected in some circles; the Phillies need pitching depth, the Twins have no obvious role for him at Rochester, and the Vanimal had some success with them.

Whether there's interest elsewhere in Worley, the Twins have some serious roster moves ahead, and probably some will come today. When Worley cleared waivers last week and was outrighted to Triple A, the Twins were down to 39 players in camp (and, coincidentally, 39 players on the 40-man roster). That's 14 too many for the Opening Day roster.

The word Sunday was that Ron Gardenhire had hinted at keeping Chris Herrmann on the Opening Day roster for his versatility — and, presumably, because having three catchers would allow heavier use of Josmil Pinto as a DH, perhaps in a platoon role with Jason Kubel.

Gardenhire's platoons have been few and far between, so at least until he specifically says that's the plan I'm not counting on it.

Still, the idea seems to be a bench of Herrmann, Pinto, Eduardo Escobar and Alex Presley. Or maybe Gardenhire will get his wish and have Jason Bartlett on his team. If he thinks Bartlett can be his alternate center fielder, that could bounce either Escobar or Presley. (Gardenhire's bench almost always has somebody who doesn't really have a role to play.)

Either way, it's not looking good for Chris Colabello or, in particular, Chris Parmelee, who (unlike Colabello) is out of options.

UPDATE: Scratch all that Herrmann stuff. He was one of 10 cuts this morning. Too bad.

Catching up on prospect lists

Miguel Sano signs autographs during TwinsFest last
weekend. The Dominican is one of the most-highly regarded
prospects in the minor leagues: No. 4 on MLB.com's
list, No. 14 in Baseball Prospectus' rankings.

Two notable sets of prospect rankings came out in recent days: MLB.com put out its Top 100 late last week, and on Monday Baseball Prospectus issued its Top 101.

Regarding the Twins -- the team of emphasis in this corner of the Internet -- there is some agreement and some notable divergence.

The Twins prospects on the MLB.com list:

• Byron Buxton, OF, No 1.
• Miguel Sano, 3B, No. 4
• Alex Meyer, RHP, No. 28
• Kohl Stewart, RHP, No.40
• Jose Barrios, RHP, No. 90

The Twins prospects on the Baseball Prospectus list:

• Buxton, No.1
• Sano, No. 14
• Meyer, No. 32
• Stewart, No. 54
• Josmil Pinto, C, No. 56
• Eddie Rosario, 2B, No. 60
• Berrios, No. 75
• Lewis Thorpe, LHP, No. 101

An obvious point of convergence is Buxton. Both lists put him at the very top of the minor league heap. This is now conventional wisdom; Baseball America will have him No. 1 when it publishes its list next month.

Another agreement, at least in terms of the Twins rankings, is that Buxton is followed by Sano, Meyer and Stewart in that order. Again, that matches the BA list for the Twins, published earlier this month.

Now to the divergences: I was surprised when Baseball America didn't have Pinto in its Twins Top 10 rankings; I said at the time that I couldn't see ranking Pinto lower than fifth. Baseball Prospectus is the first list I've seen than agreed with me on that.

MLB and BA put Berrios ahead of Rosario; BP prefers the more advanced hitter. I agree with BP -- if Rosario is indeed a second baseman. He may not have the power to be a quality outfield regular.

Eye on 2014: Catcher

Josmil Pinto had 26 hits in his
late-season call up, but also struck out
22 times.

When the Twins signed Kurt Suzuki a bit before Christmas, the idea was that he might be the starting catcher, but more likely would be the backup and mentor to rookie Josmil Pinto.

The word out of Twins Fest this past weekend was that Suzuki is likely to be the regular behind the dish.

I infer from this notion that Pinto would be shipped out to Triple A. He's not going to sharpen his defensive chops sitting six days a week, and with Josh Willingham, Oswaldo Arcia and Jason Kubel the presumptive corner outfielders / DH, there doesn't figure to be enough at-bats available to justify Pinto as a DH-catcher.

Suzuki's backup would be either Chris Herrmann or Eric Fryer. Herrmann, a left-handed hitter with the ability to play outfield, is probably the better hitter of the two, Fryer the superior defender.

Last year, with Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit getting the bulk of the catching time, catcher was perhaps the one position at which the Twins got better-than-league offensive production. Mauer's a first baseman now, and Doumit's an Atlanta Brave (and, apparently, not a catcher any more either), and it doesn't matter if it's Suzuki-Herrmann or Suzuki-Fryer -- the Twins catchers will be decisively below average on offense if Pinto's in the minors.

That might be acceptable if the Twins were't giving away so many outs at so many other positions. The Twins were near the bottom of the league in runs scored last year. They will probably need Pinto in the lineup to change that.