Ex-Twins watch: Kevin Slowey

Kevin Slowey
attended Winthrop
University on an
academic scholarship.

At the age of 31, it's on to the rest of his life for Kevin Slowey.

The former Twins pitcher was in training camp this spring with the Philadelphia Phillies and was released at the end of March. Nobody picked him up. On Tuesday it was announced that he's taken a job with the players union as a special assistant to director Tony Clark.

Slowey, who has impressive academic credentials, has a background with the union -- while with the Marlins he was placed on the pension committee as the National League representative. So it's not a huge surprise that the union found a place for him on its staff.

As a pitcher, Slowey was one of my faves, what some Baseball America writers refer to as a "personal cheeseball." In his first four seasons with the Twins, he went 39-21, 4.41, with three straight seasons of 10 to 13 wins. He had almost impeccable control and decent strikeout rates despite not really having a plus pitch.

But he sustained a broken wrist near the end of the 2008 season -- the second of those four seasons -- and didn't seem to me to be quite the same pitcher after the surgery. He never so much as qualified for the ERA title in any season (160.1 innings in 2008 was his career high). Pitchers get hurt, and that was certainly true for Slowey.

And, of course, his spectacular falling out with the Twins in 2011 is, in retrospect, emblematic of the collapse of the Ron Gardenhire era. The Twins entered that season with a seeming surplus of starting pitchers; Gardy opted at the end of training camp to move Slowey to relief; a disgruntled Slowey struggled with the transition, claimed injury, and spent much of the season on the disabled list as Bert Blyleven took to ripping him during broadcasts. Put in the rotation near the end of the year, Slowey finished 0-8, 6.61. That did for him with the Twins, who traded him to Colorado for a minor leaguer who himself didn't pan out (Daniel Turpin).

I've said many times here that both sides mishandled the situation, and nobody profited by it. I'm sorry to say that, even as a Slowey fan, it is the chaos of 2011 that I remember, not the success of the previous four seasons.

Spring training trip Day 4: Overview

Deolis Guerra fires a pitch in the ninth inning Sunday.

Saturday the Twins played on the other side of Florida (against the Mets); for my wife and me, it was Sanibel Day. No baseball; we spent the day on the islands of Sanibel and Captiva.

But we were back to baseball on Sunday, watching the Twins beat a rag-tag subset of the Miami Marlins. Earlier this month I took note in the Monday print column of the Marlins' complaints when the Red Sox sent a squad of unknowns to play the Fish, and observed:

The Marlins will be the visitors for one of the upcoming games I see in Fort Myers. 

I do not expect to see Giancarlo Stanton or Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the two established position players on the Miami roster.

As it happened, the bulk of the Marlins' "names" were on a junket with the Yankees to Panama in some sort of Mariano Rivera tribute tour.

Former Twins pitcher Kevin Slowey started the Fort Myers game for Miami and went five innings, allowing two runs. Slowey spent last year with the Marlins and did fairly well, but was moved out of the rotation in midseason and later shut down after just 92 innings. He re-signed with them, but as a minor leaguer with the proverbial invite. I'd still love to see him make the Twins look foolish for running him off, but that seems unlikely.

For the Twins, it was Ricky Nolasco for five innings of baserunners, ground balls and two runs. The Twins turned two double plays behind him (keystone combo of Eduardo Escobar at short and Brian Dozier at second).

After Nolasco came Caleb Thielbar, Glen Perkins and Jared Burton, each of whom mowed through the Marlins lineup. Then came the guy I was most curious to see, Deolis Guerra.

Guerra is the last piece of the Johan Santana trade left with the Twins. A big right-hander, he missed most of last year after a blood clot was found in his right shoulder while he was pitching for his native Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic. Like Slowey, he's a non-roster guy.

Guerra's changeup has been touted in the past, and he used it quite a bit in the ninth inning. Fastballs were generally in the low 90s, topping out (this according to the stadium scoreboard) at 93. His change was in the upper 70s, and he struck out two Marlins with it.

Guerra offers the same style of pitching as Burton. It comes at a lower price. I suggested last week that the Twins might seek to move Burton to make room for Guerra. What I saw Sunday certainly did not discourage that notion.

Ex-Twins watch: Kevin Slowey

Kevin Slowey was 39-21 with the Twins
through 2010. Then they tried to make him
a relief pitcher, and everything fell apart
for him. Now he's a Marlin, and his career
record is 41-35.

Kevin Slowey re-emerged this spring with the Miami Marlins, winning a rotation berth as a non-roster invitee under his former teammate, rookie manager Mike Redmond.

On Monday, Redmond said he was taking Slowey (2-6, 4.10) out of the rotation and making him the long reliever.

I know. That worked so well with the Twins in 2011, didn't it? Which makes it particularly amusing that part of Redmond's rationale is that "Slowey's done it before."

Yes, he has. Poorly. And his career, and the Twins starting rotation, shipwrecked on the decision.

Redmond's making room for an injured pitcher who's returning to the rotation, plus there's this: Slowey, who got off to a very strong start to the season (he had a 1.81 ERA after a May 5 start), has been pretty bad since (7.08 ERA in his last seven outings). The best of those outings was a seven-inning shutout emergency relief job in a 19-inning win June 8, which might be part of why Redmond thinks he's a good fit for long relief.

My guess, however — and Redmond hints at this in the above link — is that Slowey-to-the-pen is temporary. The Marlins may have an excess of starting candidates at the moment, but that's likely to change. Pretty good chance at least one starter gets hurt. Jose Fernandez, their best starter, is just 20; the Marlins may want to shut him down early. We're in the middle of June, and the July trading rumors are revving up; Ricky Nolasco is a pretty likely trade candidate.

Heck, a statistically oriented front office might want to target Slowey himself. His walk and strikeout rates are still very strong (1.6 BB/9, 7.3 K/9, 4.57 K/BB). And the Marlins obviously aren't committed to him.

I can see Slowey in the back of a contender's rotation in the second half. And with a better team behind him, his record might perk up.

I've always liked Slowey, and was hoping to see him start against the Twins when they visit Miami next week. That now seems unlikely.

I've long thought Slowey and the Twins both mishandled things in 2011. I'd like to see him rebuild his career, and even with this current demotion, I think he's back on track.

Ex-Twins pitchers watch

According to USA Today,
Johan Santana has baseball's
third-highest salary this year,
behind only Alex Rodriguez
and Cliff Lee.

Johan Santana had surgery Tuesday to repair his retorn shoulder capsule. The operation was termed "successful," which is surgical speak for "the patient didn't die on the table and we cut on the correct shoulder."

Santana is said to be intent on pitching again. Realistically, he's got a difficult road ahead to achieve that; he's certainly not going to pitch this year and probably not in 2014 either.

---

Matt Capps, who was signed to a minor league deal by Cleveland just before spring training, didn't make the major league roster. What's more, the erstwhile closer was actually released from his contract and re-signed by the Indians in a move that negated Capps' $100,000 roster bonus.

Cleveland is, apparently, watching its budget carefully after a poor year at the gate in 2012 and a bit of a free-agent spending spree this winter. They did a similar roster manoeuvre with Daisuke Matsuzaka, the former Red Sox pitcher who was also a non-roster invitee.

Capps took almost a week before agreeing to the second minor-league deal, which suggests that he couldn't find a better offer elsewhere. Which in turn suggests that the other teams were not impressed with what he showed during spring training.

---

Kevin Slowey, last seen spending most of the 2012 season on a Indians minor-league disabled list, made the Miami Marlins rotation. He's to start today against Washington.

The Twins have a pair of two-game series with the Marlins -- two game later this month at Target Field, two games in June in Miami (that's a bone-headed bit of scheduling) -- and I'm rather hopeful that he'll get to pitch against the Twins at least once.

If nothing else, it'll be interesting to hear Ron Gardenhire try to tap-dance again around the subject of the pitcher's falling-out with the Minnesota organization. We can be sure that Bert Blyleven will spend a few innings ripping Slowey.

I think both sides -- Slowey and Twins management -- mishandled things in 2010. Slowey's career crashed at that point; so did the Twins starting rotation. I'd like to see both back on sound footing.

---

Kyle Lohse, who signed with Milwaukee about a week before spring training ended, got in one Cactus League start and now will start for the Brewers on Friday. This avoids matching him up next week against his old team, the St. Louis Cardinals.

Not that he can dodge that matchup for the full three years of his contract.

Ex-Twins' (mis)adventures in free agency

Spring training is less than a month away, and an impressive number of former Twins are either still trying to find teams or have just landed jobs (or, in some cases, opportunities for jobs).

The market is slim for players who had a big role in turning the Twins from a 90-plus win team to a 90-plus loss team, it would appear.

A quick rundown:

Delmon Young is only 27, but the promise has tarnished.

Delmon Young, last seen bopping postseason homers for Detroit, was nevertheless quickly cut loose by the Tigers. He signed Tuesday with Philadelphia for a piddling (in baseball terms) $750,000 plus more than $2 million in bonus clauses, some of which are apparently tied to making weight at six different weigh-ins over the course of the season.

It always amazes me when a major-league athlete in any sport has weight problems. It was one thing back in the day when players worked offseason jobs to make ends meet; today, when being a jock is a full-time, year-round job, getting out of shape to the extent that Young appeared to be last season signals a significant lack of self-discipline and/or interest in his job.

And he's paying for it. The guaranteed money is a mere $50,000 more than Drew Butera signed for. That speaks volumes to how little interest there was in Young.

The Phillies intend him to be their regular right fielder, but the contract structure suggests that he'd do well to avoid his usual lousy start. The Phils don't have a whole lot committed to him.

Kevin Slowey is
on the player union's
pension committee, but
he isn't on anybody's
40-man roster.

Kevin Slowey, last seen going on a minor league disabled list in the Indians organization and never returning, signed a minor-league deal Wednesday with Miami. The Marlins have lots of openings, but Slowey hasn't pitched much, or effectively, the past two years.

The bridges between the Twins and Slowey were well and truly burned in 2011, but I'd still rather have him than Kevin Correia — which speaks less to my diminishing faith in Slowey's ability to pitch than to my conviction that the Correia signing will be a disaster.

Francisco Liriano's deal with Pittsburgh finally became official this week, long after it was reported. The lefthander apparently fractured his right arm in a bathroom fall, and the two sides had to rework the deal to give the Pirates some protection should that injury for some reason be an issue. It shouldn't. The issue, as always with Liriano, will be throwing strikes.

Matt Capps remains unsigned. So does Jon Rauch, whose departure from the Twins predates their collapse. And, of course, Kyle Lohse is still out there for any team willing to pay the penalty, with agent Scott Boras supplying this awkward metaphor to excuse the length of time his client has been dangling:

It doesn't matter what time dinner is when you're the steak.

Well done, Mr. Boras.

Ex-Twins watch: Johan Santana and Kevin Slowey

Johan Santana did not pitch
in 2011.

Johan Santana is to start the Mets opener, a milestone in his comeback from anterior capsule surgery.

The lefty is now longer the power pitcher who won two Cy Young Awards -- and deserved a third -- while toiling for the Twins last decade. In those days, Santana routinely hit the mid-90s on the radar guns. The word out of Florida this spring had his highest velocities barely reaching 90, and more generally around 87.

Which is sufficient, at least for a pitcher like Santana. He saw, with Minnesota, Brad Radke win with less velo than that.

As long as Santana has fastball command and his devastating change, he can still be successful. It's not about overpowering hitters, it's about wrecking their timing.

Santana is a pitcher of considerable intelligence, and I'm confident that he can transition from the power pitcher he once was to ... well, he's not a Jamie Moyer junkballer yet, but I'm sure he's capable of adjusting his style to fit even that level of velocity if need be.

It will be interesting to see how he fares.

---

Kevin Slowey entered camp with the Cleveland Indians penciled in for a slot in their rotation, but the Tribe will break camp with Jeanmar Gomez as their fifth starter. Slowey has been optioned to the minors.

His career certainly seems to be careening downhill.

Reconsidering the Slowey transactions

Kevin Slowey
is back in the
AL Central.

Last week I critiqued this winter's sequence of moves that has resulted in Kevin Slowey joining the Cleveland Indians.

While I remain convinced that the Twins mishandled Slowey last year (and Slowey, no doubt, played a role in the fiasco), I am not now so certain that the Twins have come off the worst of the three teams involved in this offseason's trades.

To recap:

• In early December the Twins traded Slowey to Colorado for minor league pitcher Daniel Turpen.
• Last week the Rockies traded Slowey and cash to Cleveland for pitcher Zach Putnam.

Putnam is generally regarded as a better prospect that Turpen. But the cash -- which I overlooked in delivering Friday's critique -- is not insubstantial ($1.25 million).

Look at it this way: Would the Twins swap Turpen and $1.25 million for Putman? I can't be certain, but I doubt it. Both right-handers are a secondary pitch shy of establishing themselves as major leaguers, much less as impact players.

Then there's this: Putnam is on a 40-man roster. Turpen is not. The Twins traded Slowey when they did to open a spot on the 40 before the Rule V draft, and it seems reasonable to assume that they didn't want somebody who would have to be on the 40.

Who, then, comes off best in this sequence? My sense is Cleveland, which gets Slowey at a substantial discount. I think Slowey is a better pitcher than his disastrous 2011 indicates. If he pitches in 2012 as he did when healthy in his previous seasons with the Twins, the Indians have a very good back-of-the-rotation starter.

Next would be the Twins, who rid themselves of what seemed to be a poisonous situation. And at the bottom is Colorado, which got a minor upgrade in prospects at the cost of $1.25 million and some roster flexibility.

Slowey moves on to Cleveland

Kevin Slowey was 39-29
with a 4.66 ERA in his
time with the Twins —
including 0-8, 6.67 in
2001.

When the Twins traded Kevin Slowey to Colorado, about the only good thing in it for the pitcher was that it got him out of what had become a poisonous situation in Minnesota.

Coors Field isn't a prime place to pitch to begin with, and it's particularly inhospitable for an extreme fly-ball pitcher such as Slowey. The Twins, if they were trying to punish him with the trade, picked the right destination.

But things change. The Rockies recently traded outfielder Seth Smith to Oakland for two starting pitchers, giving them a surplus of arms with which to fill out their rotation. Meanwhile, Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona turned out not to be Fausto Carmona. He's really Roberto Hernandez Heredia, and he's really 31, not 28.

There's some speculation that the Indians may seek to negate Carmona/Heredia's contract. At the very least, it's going to be a whole lot more difficult for the pitcher to get his visa.

So the Indians today traded for Slowey. And whereas the Twins netted a pitcher (Daniel Turpen) who didn't fare so well in Double A, the Rockies got Zach Putnam, who (a) has reached the majors; (b) pitched well in Triple A and (c) was ranked by Baseball America as Cleveland's No. 10 prospect.

This situation appears a whole lot better for Slowey. And it also appears, again, that the Twins found another way to mishandle him.

Winter meetings, Day Two

Kevin Slowey: Going to Colorado.

It was pretty obvious last season that there was a massive disconnect between Kevin Slowey and the Twins, and it was widely expected that the pitcher would be moved along this winter.

And so it transpired on Tuesday: Slowey to Colorado for a player to be named.

This move also

• clears Slowey's salary -- which would have been, through the arbitration process, somewhere between $2.5 million and $3 million;
• opens a slot on the 40-man roster, allowing the Twins to finalize the Matt Capps signing and participate in the Rule V draft; and
• clears a bit of the brush in the starting rotation field.

I wish Slowey the best, but I can't say I'm optimistic. Denver is not known as a place where pitchers go to revive their careers, and as a fly-ball pitcher Slowey may be a particularly poor fit for Coors Field.

---

Here's a Terry Ryan quote from the above link about the Slowey trade:

Twins general manager Terry Ryan — speaking with reporters during his media availability on Monday — spoke highly of Slowey, saying he expects him to bounce back next season.
“All you have to do is look at 2010,” Ryan said. “What did he do in 2010? How many games did he win? You can slice and dice those statistics any way you want, you’re looking for guys who win games. A starting pitcher’s job is probably, first and foremost, to win games. A guy wins 15, 20 games in the major leagues, you say, ‘Geez, I don’t know how he did it but he’s got ‘em.’ OK.”

You couldn't ask for a better traditionalist defense of the pitcher's win stat. And Ryan probably used that sales pitch on Colorado and others as he shopped Slowey around.

Of course, Slowey was the losing pitcher in all eight of his 2011 starts, and the Twins lost in all of his relief appearances as well.

---


Michael Cuddyer's wife gave birth to twin girls Tuesday morning. I don't know how rapidly Daddy Cuddy will decide on his next employer, but the Twins clearly would prefer it be sooner than later. The Twins are reported to have offered him a three-year deal for about $24 million. I would expect him to take it.

---

Matt Capps passed his physical, so those hoping that signing falls through will be disappointed.

Contemplating Kevin Slowey

Kevin Slowey in September: Five starts,
27.1 innings, 22 runs (all earned),
17 strikeouts and no walks. 

Kevin Slowey made his eighth (and final) start of the season Monday. He lost. Again. He was the losing pitcher in all eight of his starts.

Won-loss records are far from the ideal yardstick by which to measure pitchers, but that seems a significant number. Oh-and-eight in eight starts.

He also relieved six times. The Twins lost all six of those games as well.

Slowey's opposite-of-triumphant return to the rotation has illustrated why the Twins wanted to move him to the bullpen. As was the case last season, he frequently provided three, four, five good innings, then melted down. Such was the case Monday: He came into the sixth inning with a 3-1 lead and got just two outs that inning, surrendering four runs and the lead.

His strong suit — his control — remains strong. He walked just five men in 59.1 innings; while his strikeout rate is lower than in previous seasons, his K/BB ratio is better than ever. It's difficult to believe a pitcher who fans almost seven men for each walk can be this ineffective.

Slowey and team management are widely believed to be on the outs. So, a couple of years ago, were Glen Perkins and the organization, and that appears to have been patched up. But Perkins accepted a bullpen shift and thrived in that role; a similar shift didn't take with Slowey.

My hope back in August, when Slowey slid back into the major league rotation to take the place of the injured Scott Baker, was that Slowey would at least rebuild his value as a trade chip — so that even if the Twins don't want him back in 2012, maybe someone else would give up something for him.

That, it seems safe to say, didn't happen.

Most disappointing Twins

Joe Mauer's lost season was, at least in the eyes of USA Today,
not as disappointing as the seasons of Pedro Alvarez,
Jason Hayward or Brian Matusz. Really.

USA Today on Thursday printed a list of the 10 most disappointing players of the 2011 season. (The link is to a slideshow.) Incredibly, none of the paper's 10 are Twins, and I therefore regard the list as fatally flawed. None of the 10 had good seasons, none lived up to expectations, but ... I'm much closer to being a Joe Mauer apologist than critic, but he has to be one of the top two or three disappointments in all of MLB.

The Twins 2011 season -- only seven games to go -- has been so dismal that one can make a Top 10 disappointments list for the team that would stack up pretty well to the USA Today list.

10) Danny Valencia: Lower in every percentage from last season, and a brutal season in the field by the defensive metrics. He leads the team in RBIs, but WAR (Wins Above Replacement) says he's easily replaceable.

9) Denard Span: Was the team's best player until his concussion. Since then, he's either been out of action or completely ineffective -- so ineffective that he now has the lowest batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage of his career.

8) Brian Duensing: 5-1, 2.73 as a starter in 2009; 7-2, 3.05 as a starter in 2010; 9-13, 5.29 this year.

As difficult a season as Matt Capps
has had, he's not nearly the most
disappointing Twin of 2011.

7) Matt Capps: Didn't thrive in the closers role, and his strikeout rate dropped sharply this year.

6) Justin Morneau: He's not ranked higher because nobody was really sure what to expect from him in his return from 2010's concussion. As we wind up 2011, nobody can be sure what to expect from him in his return from 2011's concussiion.

5) Kevin Slowey: As a starter, he was always flawed by a lack of durability, but he was still generally effective. Shifting him to the bullpen this spring didn't work, and the failure brought on an avalanche of other problems. He's been in the rotation in September, and that isn't going well either.

4) Delmon Young: The Tigers apparently are delighted with Young, but he followed last season's 21 homers, 112 RBIs and .294 batting average with 4, 32 and .266 before the Twins dumped him -- and a lower slugging percentage than Alexi Casilla.

3) Tsuyoshi Nishioka: Even discounting his stellar 2010 season in Japan, it seemed reasonable to expect him to provide league-average play at second base. He broke a leg in the first week of the season, played shaky defense at both second and short, and didn't hit at all.

Far too many walks for Francisco
Liriano this season to maintain
2010's success.

2) Francisco Liriano: Yes, he had a no-hitter. He also went from 14-9, 3.63 to 9-9, 4.77 -- which understates how poorly he pitched.

1) Joe Mauer: Career lows in virtually every category, excluding his 2003 rookie season -- and even then he had better slash stats. His absence behind the plate, I believe, played some unmeasurable part in the decay of the pitching staff.

Elbow room

Kyle Gibson slid in the
2009 draft because of
a stress fracture in his
forearm. Now he has
a partially torn ligament.

Scott Baker. Kyle Gibson. Anthony Slama.

Three right-handed pitchers, three elbow injuries, and — at least for now — three rehab projects without surgery.

All three are said to have strained flexor muscles in the right elbow. Gibson also has ligament damage.

I'm not orthopedic surgeon, but given the description of Gibson's injury in particular — a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament — I'm not optimistic that rehab is going to be the solution. It depends, as I understand such things, on where in the ligament the tear is (and now big the tear is). The ligament is at its thickest closest to the muscle, and has a better chance of holding together there.

I know that Nolan Ryan pitched for years with a partial tear in the ligament, and that Andy Pettitte was described for years as a potential Tommy John candidate. Neither ever went through the ligament replacement surgery. But most pitchers who have a partial tear wind up having the surgery.

Timing matters. If Gibson has the surgery soon, he'll miss the 2012 season but should be at full speed for 2013. If he spends the winter trying to rehab the injury only to get to spring training and find that it didn't work, he'll still miss 2012, and (like Pat Neshek and Joe Nathan) probably won't be ready to roll at the start of 2013.

Kevin Slowey returns
to the starting rotation.

I understand the reluctance to have the surgery. But it sure seems that the Twins often take the conservative rehab approach only to find weeks or months later that surgery was needed after all.

---

Baker's spot in the rotation will be filled by Kevin Slowey, not Anthony Swarzak. This is absolutely the right choice. While Swarzak has done well as a spot starter-long reliever, his strikeout rate remains down in the Nick Blackburn/Carl Pavano range — too low.

Even setting aside the whole issue of Slowey's inability/unwillingness to work out of the bullpen, the records of both men say Slowey's the better starter.

And even if the Twins would prefer not to have Slowey be part of their future, they're still going to be better off if he rebuilds trade value — and returning him to the rotation is a step in that direction.

Buyers or sellers? Maybe just stand pat

First things first: I promised in the Monday print column a link to this Joe Posnanski piece on the 2013 Hall of Fame class. Promise kept.

---

At this point, the Twins are better off hanging on to
Kevin Slowey than trading him.

That was an ugly start Sunday from Francisco Liriano, who pitched as if the strike zone was underground. In truth, it was an ugly series, and it left the Twins seven games behind Detroit — seven games out with three teams to climb over.

It's not an impossible task, but it is a difficult one. It's probably not worth sacrificing future assets to improve the immediate outlook. I remain reluctant to recommend the Twins go into sell mode, but I see no reason to add salary and veterans.

One move that seems to be taken for granted — that the Twins will move Kevin Slowey this week — now strikes me as a (probably) bad idea. Why?

• Slowey — exiled to Triple A and bearing the whiff of a troublemaker — won't likely bring full value in a deal right now.
• Kyle Gibson is apparently struggling, and the Twins are said to believe that he's wearing down. Should the big club need a starter in the next two months, Gibson is unlikely to get the call.
• The Glen Perkins example should be too fresh in our minds to be eager to discard a quality arm. 

I say hang on to Slowey. Let him re-establish some value in Triple A. If something happens to one of the five big league starters, stick him back in the major league rotation. It the organization really believes he's more trouble than he's worth (and let me say that I doubt that he is), the offseason is time enough to peddle him.

Had the Twins a more successful homestand, had they trimmed their deficit in the division to three games or something along those lines, dealing Slowey now might make sense. It probably doesn't now.

Anthony Swarzak vs. Kevin Slowey vs. Glen Perkins

Kevin Slowey is
0-1. 3.26 in six
outings, all starts,
on his rehab
assignment.

There are, I'm  sure, sound medical reasons for the unhurried pace of Kevin Slowey's rehab from his abdominal strain.

But beyond the physiological is this: There is no current place for Slowey in the major league rotation, and there is apparent agreement between the pitcher and the organization that he does not fit in the bullpen.

So when his 20-day rehab assignment to Triple-A Rochester expires, the expectation is that Slowey will be optioned to the Red Wings, perhaps as preliminary to a trading-deadline deal. Or perhaps not; pretty much everybody expected the Twins to dump Glen Perkins during his 2009-10 exile, and no deal was ever done.

Perkins has obviously found a home in the bullpen. His fastball velocity is markedly higher than as a starter, and his somewhat limited repertoire plays better in brief outings.

Slowey's record as a major league starter is superior to Perkins. Perkins has 44 major league starts on his resume with an 18-12 record and 5.09 ERA; Slowey, in 82 starts, is 39-21, 4.42. But like Perkins, Slowey has a limited selection of pitches, has had difficulty going deep into games and has never made it through a full season in the rotation.

It wasn't outrageous for the Twins to decide that Slowey was the odd man out for their rotation this spring, but their spring training decision to make him a key component of their bullpen plans backfired. Perkins, whose very career appeared to be on the line this spring, earned his current role by getting outs in relief. For him, set-up work is a step up from where he was; for Slowey, it probably looked like a demotion.

In four major league starts this year,
Anthony Swarzak is 2-1, 2.84.

Then there's Anthony Swarzak, like Perkins a product of the 2004 draft, like Slowey a second-round draft pick. Swarzak's career also appeared to be going nowhere after last season, when he went 5-12, 6.21 for Rochester.

He went to winter ball, got sick, lost a lot of weight, decided to keep it off — which is a tough way to go about it. He pitched well in training camp but was demoted early, pitched well in Rochester (his strikeout rate jumped, his walk rate plummeted), got called up for a spot start late in April, didn't fare well, got another call up in mid May and has stuck.

He's had three more spot starts and the Twins have won all three. He hasn't been marvelous in his long relief role (he's had seven relief appearances and allowed runs in five of them; another way of looking at it is that his ERA has been lower after four of the seven outings, higher after three).

Swarzak has the bullpen role that Slowey ideally would have started with —  long relief, spot starter.  In a real sense, he benefited from lower expectations.

I'm still not completely sold on Swarzak. It's only 40 innings, but his strikeout rate (4.3 K/9) isn't good, and his BB/K ratio is roughly where it was in his first go-round in the majors in 2009. He has the job for now, but I'm not sure how secure his grip is. I remain convinced that Slowey is the better pitcher.

Ticket sales, roster cuts and trade speculation

Item: The Twins started selling single-game tickets Saturday and had technical glitches that made some customers unhappy.

It's back to Rochester
for shortstop Trevor
Plouffe.

Comment: Given the hype and emphasis the organization put on the March 19 opening of sales, this is a black eye for the Twins. They not only expected heavy demand on Saturday, they encouraged it. To have repeated system failures as a result ... they deserve the complaints, and shrugging them off as merely a "relatively small number" doesn't live up to my expectations of the operation.

Item: Five more players were sent to the minor league complex Saturday.

Comment: Trevor Plouffe got the attention in LaVelle Neal's pregame blog, but Plouffe entered camp as an underdog candidate for the roster and played poorly to boot. He's been charged with six errors in exhibition games, and that understates his problems in the field.

The demotion that struck me was Alex Burnett, who made the squad last year. Nobody's seized one of the three open bullpen jobs yet, and Burnett's been no worse than some of the remaining contenders, but he faded in the second half last season and obviously needs to climb back up in the esteem of the decision makers.

The other guys gone: Ben Revere, Danny Rams and Matt Brown. None were serious candidates for the 25-man roster.

Item: Kevin Slowey threw three shutout innings of relief Saturday.

Comment: The Blue Jays are said to have had three scouts and a video camera on hand for the game. If the Twins trade a starter this spring — and I think it's likely — I'd rather they moved Nick Blackburn, who started (five innings, two runs allowed) than Slowey, but I think the Twins value Blackburn more than Slowey, and I also think many other organizations would prefer Slowey.

The video camera? I suspect it's to dissect pitching motions. Slowey has had repeated stints on the disabled list, and if Toronto is contemplating trading for him, they may want first to decide if the injuries are rooted in his delivery.

Bullpen candidate profiles: Brian Duensing and Kevin Slowey

Brian Duensing was 10-3,
2.62 last season.

Kevin Slowey was
13-6, 4.45.

Pitcher: Brian Duensing
Throws: Left
Age: 28
Roster status: 40-man roster
Chance of making team: Certain

Pitcher: Kevin Slowey
Throws: Right
Age: Turns 27 in May
Roster status: 40-man roster
Chance of making team: Certain

The Minnesota Twins have six established starting pitchers in camp. Five of them have seven-digit contracts; the sixth has ended each of the last two seasons in the rotation and sports a 15-5, 3.02 career record.

The money and the success add up to this: Barring injury or trade, those six figure to make up half the Twins 12-man pitching staff.

But six is not five, and there are only five slots in the starting rotation. One of the starters is bullpen bound.

We know it won't be Francisco Liriano or Carl Pavano. Scott Baker and Nick Blackburn are somewhat less secure, but they have the biggest salaries of the remaining four, Baker has the most upside, and Blackburn is the most durable. Expect them to be in the rotation or on the DL (both are coming off surgeries).

That leaves Kevin Slowey and Brian Duensing. And they are such dissimilar pitchers, with different potential roles in the bullpen, that the choice to fill out the rotation should affect who makes the team as a relief pitcher.

Duensing sparkled in a relief role in the first half of the 2010 season, putting up a 1.80 ERA in 40 relief outings. He held left-handed hitters to a weak .162/.217/.239 slash line for the season as a whole.

The lefty has saved the rotation in each of the past two seasons. But as good as he's been as a starter, there are those in and out of the organization who think he's better suited to be a relief pitcher.

If Duensing is in the bullpen, he's almost certainly going to be used late and close. He could well supplant Jose Mijares as the primary lefty specialist. A late-in-game combo of a healthy Joe Nathan and Matt Capps from the right side and Duensing and Mijares from the left would be imposing indeed.

And the odds of more than one of the remaining left-handed candidates (most notably Glen Perkins, Dusty Hughes and Scott Diamond) make the roster would be sharply diminished. Perkins or Diamond might get the call as the long man, but the remaining two bullpen jobs would likely go to right-handers.

One of Slowey's drawbacks as a starter has been a pattern of fading after three or four innings. He made 29 starts last season, and was pulled in five innings or less in 10 times. That might suggest that shorter stints are in order -- and that means moving to the bullpen.

But Slowey has seldom been used in relief, and certainly not in game situations, as Duensing has. Slowey in the pen would be best used in long relief — which would probably foreclose Jeff Manship's chances of winning a berth, and would certainly mean that the Twins would need at least one of the Perkins-Hughes-Diamond trio to emerge as a second lefty.

It would be easier for the Twins to keep Duensing in the rotation if one of those three convinces Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson that he can be death on lefties, and even easier still if either Pat Neshek or Jim Hoey can be deemed capable of getting big outs in middle to late innings.

It's an intriguing decision. My guess is that Duensing will open the season, for the third straight year, in the bullpen. But it wouldn't be all that surprising if it were Slowey in the pen.

And all this becomes moot if one of the starters gets hurt or is traded.

(This post, with some alterations, also serves as the Monday print column.)

Sunday morning: Pitchers goin' down

A number of pitching injuries from Saturday to discuss today.

The big one nationally is Stephen Strasburg (pictured), but being a Twins parochial I'll save the budding superstar for later.

A week ago today Ron Gardenhire pulled Kevin Slowey from a no-hitter in an attempt to avoid an arm injury. Saturday Slowey struggled to get outs — or even to keep the ball in the park — and reported a problem in his right triceps.

The prognosis isn't in, but he's out: 15-day DL for Slowey, and Nick Blackburn is back to the rotation.

Blackburn is not as talented as Slowey, but he does have a track record, and the reports on him in Triple A have been positive. He's rediscovered his sinker, we are told. Maybe so.

I regard Blackburn as a downgrade from Slowey, but not necessarily a massive one.

Ron Mahay is a less important piece of the puzzle, but a less-easily replaced one. With the earlier injury to Jose Mijares, the veteran LOOGY had become the Twins' top left-handed bullpen option.

But on Saturday Mahay injured his right shoulder when he fell while pursuing a ground ball. He's also already on the 15-day DL, with Anthony Slama recalled to fill his roster space. But Slama's right-handed. So is everybody else in the Minnesota bullpen, with the exception of Glen Perkins. And Perkins has not, in the past, demonstrated the skill set of a lefty-killer.

At least Mahay's injury is to his non-pitching arm.

OK, on to Strasburg. He threw one of those otherworldly pitches of his Saturday -- a 90-mph changeup? Really? -- grimaced and looked at his elbow. Out of the game he went, and let the speculation begin.

As with Slowey and Mahay, the specifics of the injury are unclear.

What I do know: It's not just amateur analysts (such as moi) suspicious of Strasburg's delivery. Don Cooper, the White Sox pitching coach -- who knows a thing or two about keeping pitchers healthy -- said a month ago he sees trouble ahead for the Washington pitcher.

I don't wish injuries on anybody, so I hope I'm wrong. But if he's having arm miseries when being babied along, this is not going to end well.

---
Poll stuff: Last week's question was about pulling Slowey from his no-hit bid. We had 57 responses, which I believe is the record for this blog. (Feel free to be either impressed or unimpressed.)

Fifty (87 percent) agreed with pulling him. Seven (13 percent) did not.

New poll up.

Pulling Slowey and other poll stuff

Kevin Slowey missed a start with elbow tendinitis. His strike-to-ball ratio Sunday wasn't its usual 2-1; it was more like 3-2. He wasn't getting ahead of hitters in his usual fashion.

And yet he had a no-hitter after seven innings.

I saw little of Slowey's outing (listened on the radio while doing yardwork), but I came in to see him pitch the seventh. I saw a pitcher laboring.

This is not an easy call for a manager. Ron Gardenhire opted to pull Slowey after 106 pitches, and as much as I would love to see Slowey get a no-hitter, I think it was the right call.

Heck, when even Bert "pitch until your arm falls off" Blyleven doesn't argue with the decision to pull a pitcher, it's probably pretty obvious.

What do YOU think? That's this week's poll question.

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Last week's poll concerned second base in 2011. We had 40 votes.

Nineteen (47 percent) want Alexi Casilla to get the first crack at the job. Thirteen (33 percent) want Orlando Hudson re-signed. Eight (20 percent) want a third option.

Talking pitchers

My evaluation right now: Kevin Slowey did enough Tuesday to stay in the Twins rotation. He displayed better command than he has, he struck out seven men in his 5.2 innings, and two of the three runs charged against him scored after he left the game. He wasn't great, but greatness isn't the criteria.

So I say: Blackburn out of the rotation, Slowey and Baker stay in.

Of course, I have a higher regard for the value of strikeouts for a pitcher than the Twins organization does.

---

Jon Rauch was deem unavailable after taking a comebacker on the ankle, and when Jesse Crain warmed up in the sixth, Dick Bremer started speculating on who would be called on in a save situation.

Crain has been the most effective of the bullpenners this month, and on that basis I was happy to see him get the call in the sixth-inning game situation (bases loaded, two out). It didn't work, but that was the time to use the best reliever you've got.

But the notion floated by Bremer that Anthony Slama, who arrived in the Twin Cities during the game, might be the closer du jour was bizarre. Matt Guerrier would have gotten the ninth.

Of course, before that happened, Jose Mijares would have had to handle the eighth, and that didn't happen either.

Taking it Slowey

It appears that Kevin Slowey is at something of a crossroads.

He ripped through the minors with essentially one pitch — a 90-mph fastball — and an almost unique ability to locate it. He seldom showed a breaking ball or change in the minors; the hitters never forced him to.

He has essentially stuck with that approach in the majors, and entered this season with a 26-15 record. Part of that won-lost record, of course, is run support, not quality pitching. But he has, racked up walk-to-strikeout ratios of about 1 to 5 — and anybody who can do that is going to win.

But the wrist injury — from a line drive taken in his final start of 2008 — that ended his 2009 season prematurely so that he could have reconstructive surgery appears to have changed that. His walks are up slightly, his strikeouts down a touch. The ratio this year is a bit over 1 to 3.6 — still strong, but not as strong as he's used to.

More troubling is the loss of command as opposed to control. He's still throwing strikes, but not necessarily the strikes he wants. He said during spring training that the wrist may never feel right again; I suspect that the extraordinary ability to put his fastball in exactly the place he wants it is gone.

If so, he needs something more. More movement on the fastball. Or more curves, sliders, changeups. He can't be a one-pitch control artist anymore.