A lost life, a lost game, a lost job

Worse things happened in the Twins organization the past 24 hours or so than Wednesday's game, although that was plenty bad.

I refer to the death of Paul Bargas, the left-handed pitcher the Twins acquired from Colorado in exchange for Jose Morales after the 2010 season. Bargas never threw a pitch for the Minnesota organization; he was found during spring training 2011 to have a brain tumor. There was talk last winter that he was ready to try to play again, but ... it didn't happen. He was 23.

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The highlight, or lowlight, of
Jeff Manship's tenure this time around
was the day he pitched with the name
on his jersey misspelled.

Jeff Manship pitched one inning Wednesday, giving up three runs. This pushed his ERA up to 10.27, and the Twins optioned him back to Rochester and called up Kyle Waldrop.

I thought Waldrop was likely to make the team during spring training, but he strained his right elbow in the final week or so and spent quite a while on the disabled list. He had a 1.29 ERA in Rochester (14.3 innings) since returning, but that comes with suspect walk and strikeout rates (five walks, five K's).

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Leading up to Wednesday's nooner, Cory Provus, after talking about White Sox starter Chris Sale, told us that Twins starter Nick Blackburn "is also throwing the ball well."

This was a rather bizarre claim, considering that Blackburn's ERA entering the game was 7.45 and he had just one quality start in his 11 outings. Blackburn's 4-4 record had more to do with run support and bullpen help than his work. (And things didn't improve Wednesday.)

Provus has been a sizable upgrade on John Gordon. But talking up Blackburn's season just erodes credibility.

COPOP III: The injury factor

Kyle Waldrop's
chances of making
the 25-man roster
are pretty much gone.

The Twins open the 2012 season a week from today. I believe that the bullpen would be settled now, if not for the injury factor -- not merely among relief candidates themselves, but in the starting rotation.

Kyle Waldrop, who I figured was most likely to emerge with the final middle relief slot, is battling a sore elbow. LaVelle Neal said today the soreness was on the inside of the joint, and that gets my attention.

Then there are two putative members of the starting rotation whose status is up in the air: Scott Baker (elbow) and Jason Marquis (family emergency). Marquis has been out of camp for roughly two weeks now after his daughter's injury.

This may not have a lot of impact on the bullpen as the season begins. The Twins have an off day scheduled during their first turn through the rotation, and Liam Hendriks is likely to be Plan B if and when the Twins need to fill in for one of the starters. They won't necessarily need to get to Matt Maloney or Anthony Swarzak until the second week of the season.

So I'll leave Maloney and Swarzak in their places, and go with Jeff Gray in the spot previously filled by Waldrop:

Jeff Gray pitched
Friday against the
Red Sox and gave up
a two-run homer to
Cody Ross.

Closer: Matt Capps
Setup 1: Glen Perkins
Setup 2/Middle Relief 1: Jared Burton
LOOGY1/MR2: Brian Duensing
MR3: Gray (Alex Burnett, Casey Fien)
MR4/L2: Maloney
Long Man: Swarzak


I'm not particularly thrilled with Gray, but 

• Gray's been pitching earlier in games than Fien;
• Burnett has been ineffective;
• Gray, who is on the 40-man roster, is out of options.

Terry Ryan said in the wake of the demotion of Tsuyoshi Nishioka, that options would not be a factor in who makes the team. I do not give that full credence. Options matter. They may matter less this spring than in some previous ones, but they matter.

Nearly perfect

Zach Stewart had something to
smile about Monday night.

On the spur of the moment Monday morning I decided to hit Target Field for the evening tilt of the White Sox-Twins make-up doubleheader. One attraction for me was to take an in-person look at Scott Diamond.

Diamond was ... OK. He struck out four men in five innings and allowed just two runs,  but ... 10 baserunners is a lot. He had to pitch out of jams in four of the five innings.

Diamond figures to continue to start this month, but at this point it seems safe to say that if he's going to have a major-league career he needs to

• establish better command of his pitches, especially his fastball; and
• widen the velocity separation between his pitches.

The radar gun readings at Target Field generally showed his fastest pitches to be 88 or 89 mph. The slower pitches were more like 83 mph, and that's probably not sufficient differential.

Another newbie pitcher I watched with interest was Kyle Waldrop, making his major league debut. True to his reputation, he kept the ball on the ground. Not only did the first six batters hit grounders (five outs and an error by shortstop Trevor Plouffe), I don't think any of them even hit a foul ball in the air.

But once he got into the mid-30s in his pitch count, the White Sox started getting the ball off the ground. Two line-drive singles interspersed with a ground ball single and a walk added up to two earned runs and an unimpressive line score. He looked better than that to me.

But neither, of course, was the pitcher of the day. That was Zach Stewart, a rookie righty for Chicago who came oh-so-close to a perfect game.

I started thinking about the possibility of a perfecto after he got the first nine hitters. I told the guy standing next to me (I had a standing room only ticket) after the fifth that if Stewart got through the seventh inning and Joe Mauer's third plate appearance, he'd get it.

And when Mauer lined to short to end the seventh, I was quite certain.

Danny Valencia proved otherwise with an opposite-field double to open the eighth. Stewart had to settle for a one-hitter in which he allowed just the one baserunner.

That was the lineup to have such a game against. What with injuries, the second game of a doubleheader the day after a flight from California, and the expanded September roster, the Twins sported a lineup that would have raised eyebrows in spring training. (Teams are supposed to have at least three regulars in their exhibition lineups; this lineup had two, Mauer and Valencia.)

I don't say this to belittle what Stewart did— he pitched a whale of a game. There were few truly hard-hit balls by the Twins, and those that were hard hit weren't going to be hits because they were hit at infielders.

But there's been altogether too many games with too little offense and too many weak at-bats.

Seven years in the making

Kyle Waldrop is
likely to make his
major-league debut
in today's doubleheader.

Take this as a fresh lesson in how long it takes to judge a baseball amateur draft:

It wasn't that long ago that it appeared the Twins had utterly wasted their 2004 windfall of high-round draft picks. Today, it is possible that the 2012 team will have a regular middle infielder and about half of its bullpen as a result of that draft. Or maybe not.

The Twins had three first round selections that year. Trevor Plouffe — who, Sunday's brain fart notwithstanding, has been quite good in this third 2011 callup — was the first man the Twins selected that year, 20th overall. Glen Perkins came two picks later (22nd). Kyle Waldrop, who is being added to the major league roster today, was the 25th pick. (One of those picks came from the Cubs, who surrendered it for signing LaTroy Hawkins; another came from the Mariners, who had signed Eddie Guardado.)

Then their two "sandwich round" picks, again compensation for losing the Hawk and Everyday Eddie: Matt Fox and Jay Rainville. Fox pitched in one memorable game for the Twins and pitched this year in the Red Sox chain. Rainville is out of baseball.

The Twins picked up Anthony Swarzak in the second round.

It certainly could have had a more productive draft; Dustin Pedroia, for example, was drafted in the second round a few picks after Swarzak. It also could have been a lot worse; only 14 of the 30 players taken in the second round have even appeared in the majors to this point.

That draft hasn't helped the Twins a lot. I doubt they drafted Perkins, Waldrop, Fox, Rainville and Swarzak with the idea that they would wind up with a handful of middle relievers, but that appears their destiny.  They certainly drafted Plouffe with the idea that he'd become the starting shortstop, but he hasn't grabbed the job yet.

Perkins could inherit the closer's role. Perhaps Swarzak will emerge with a rotation berth. Maybe Plouffe will seize the shortstop's job after all. Waldrop has a chance to claim a bullpen spot.

Seven years out, and the Twins still have hope from that draft. Hope, but not a lot of accomplishment.

COPOP III: Life after Neshek

To hear the Twins tell it, space on the 40-man roster was behind the decision to waive Pat Neshek.

Ron Gardenhire, quoted in the Star Tribune story:

"We need roster spots. That's why we were trying to clear one. We could have put [Neshek] back on if we needed. But we needed to [clear a] roster spot to have one available if we keep one of these guys who aren't on the roster."

Kyle Waldrop may
be the biggest
beneficiary of the
Neshek move.

One of these guys being Kyle Waldrop or (less likely) Carlos Gutierrez. The only problem with that rationalization is the math. As I explained in the previous post, any scenario that involves putting a non-roster guy such as Waldrop on the 25-man roster means either waiving Glen Perkins (out of options) or offering Scott Diamond (Rule V) back to Atlanta. Now, maybe there's a deal lined up that involves sending the Braves a non-roster player in exchange for their claim on Diamond, in which case, yeah, they needed a roster spot.That's certainly possible -- but if it's not the case, the public explanation for the move is really a way to avoid saying of Neshek: He's not what he was, and he's not going to be.

But the roster spot explanation casts a light on the Twins apparent thinking about the bullpen. It hints strongly that Waldrop is likely to land a berth. And LaVelle Neal said in his blog Sunday that Dusty Hughes (who had another scoreless inning Sunday) is "pretty much a lock."

So let's update COPOP (Current Outsider Projected Opening Pen):

Closer: Joe Nathan
Setup 1: Matt Capps
Lefty 1: Jose Mijares
Setup 2/Middle relief 1: Waldrop
Lefty2: Hughes
MR2: Perkins
Long Man: Kevin Slowey

This leaves Jeff Manship on the outside looking in. He could get the nod over Perkins, but I just can't see the Twins throwing Perkins away.

Bullpen candidate profile: Kyle Waldrop

Kyle Waldrop had
a 2.57 ERA in
Triple A in 2010.

Pitcher: Kyle Waldrop
Throws: Right
Age: 25
Roster status: Non-roster invitee
Chance of making team: Slim but plausible

Like previous profilees Glen Perkins and Anthony Swarzak, Waldrop is a high-round pick from the Twins 2004 draft. Unlike Perkins and Swarzak, he has yet to get even the proverbial cup of coffee in the majors.

He reached Double A as a starter in four seasons, putting up decent but not spectacular ERAs and bearing consistently a red flag of a low strikeout rate. Then he got hurt and missed the 2008 season completely.

Since then he's worked strictly out of the bullpen. His ERAs have been much better, but his leading indicator stats (W/K and K/9) haven't budged much. He is said to have a good sinking fastball, and he really has kept the ball in the park well.

Waldrop was a bubble candidate for the bullpen last spring, losing out to Alex Burnett because Burnett was on the 40 and Waldrop wasn't. He did well for a lousy Rochester team last season but tailed off late, then went to the Arizona Fall League and got shelled there. The Twins left Waldrop exposed to the Rule V draft, figuring that the AFL debacle would scare teams off, and he slid on through.

So he remains in the Twins system. His biggest obstacle is, still, that he's not on the 40-man roster. To get a big league job, he has to not only convince the staff that he's one of their seven best bullpen options, but he has to convince the organization that he's worth waiving somebody like Swarzak or Deolis Guerra. I'm more certain that he's worth losing Swarzak for than I am that he's one of the seven best bullpen candidates, but those spots also might be earmarked for the likes of Kyle Gibson later in the year.