The coming of 'clarity'

Lester Oliveros has
the right to accept
free agency after
being removed from
the 40-man roster
for the second time.

Paul Molitor on Friday promised "clarity" this morning about the pitching staff, specifically about the fifth starter.

Trevor May got dinged up in his start against Pittsburgh. Apparently Aaron Hicks didn't help matters by turning a catchable deep fly into a "double," but it still wasn't a good line score for May. I've figured all spring that May was going to need some injuries among the veterans to snag a rotation spot, and that hasn't happened.

Meanwhile, the Twins outrighted Lester Oliveros. I was barely aware he was on the 40, to be honest, and now he isn't. There are at least three non-roster guys in camp with a legit chance to make the 25-man roster (outfielder Shane Robinson and right-handed relievers Blaine Boyer and Tom Hamburger), so there might be other moves to come.

Oliveros is an alleged hard-thrower (he had, during his brief September callup last year, the single fastest pitch thrown by a Minnesota Twin), but he had arm issues early in camp and was sent out in the first wave of cuts. Meanwhile there is chatter that the Twins are dissatisfied with the velocities left in their bullpen and reports that they're sniffing around Rafael Soriano, the veteran reliever who lost the closer job in Washington last summer and has gone unsigned this winter.

Which, ugh. Soriano's 35 and there must be reasons why nobody signed him.

Current bullpen projection:

Closer: Glen Perkins
Setup 1: Casey Fien
LOOGY 1/Setup 2: Brian Duensing
MR1: Tim Stauffer
MR2: J.R. Graham
MR3: Boyer
Long: Tommy Milone or Mike Pelfrey

If they bring in somebody from the outside, who gets bumped? Not any of the first three, and not Graham, who is a Rule 5 guy with velocity. Ryan's downplayed Stauffer's struggles all month, but maybe he's the guy they're looking to replace in that mix,

The Knoblauch legacy

We can trace Brian
Duensing's presence on
the Twins roster to
Chuck Knoblauch.

A few years ago I wrote a print column on the "Knoblauch tree," in which I traced the impact on the Twins of their 1989 decision to draft Chuck Knoblauch in the first round.

As detailed in this Grantland piece by Ben Lindbergh, the Twins are still benefiting from that move.

Knoblauch's personal travails notwithstanding, he had an excellent seven-year run in Minnesota: Starting second baseman on the 1991 World Series team, Rookie of the Year that year, four All-Star teams, a cumulative slash line of .304/..391/.416.

The Twins traded him to the Yankees and got back Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton, Brian Buchanan and Danny Mota (and cash). Mota washed out. The others:

• Guzman was the Twins regular shortstop for six years, during which time they won three division titles. Guzy led the league in triples three times, made an All-Star team, slashed .226/.303/.383. 
• Milton spent six years -- or five really, considering an injury that wiped out most of his final season in Minnesota -- in the Twins rotation, racking up a 57-51 record with a 4.76 ERA and one All-Star season.
• Buchanan wasn't so much of a much. The Twins gave the big outfielder 455 plate appearances over three seasons, in which he hit .258 with 16 homers. But he still matters in this saga.

Guzman left as a free agent; under the prevailing rules, the Twins got a third-round draft pick from the Nationals. (Lindbergh's flow chart says it was the Mariners, but that's an error.) That pick turned into Brian Duensing, still a member of the pitching staff. Duensing to date is 37-36 with a 4.12 ERA with the Twins, splitting his time between the rotation (61 starts) and the bullpen (238 relief outings).

Milton was traded to Philadelphia for Nick Punto, Carlos Silva and Bobby Korecky.

• Korecky's still hanging around at age 35; the Blue Jays gave him 3.1 innings last season. He made just 16 appearances with the Twins before they cut him loose. 
• Punto's also still going; he was with Oakland last year as a reserve infielder. In seven years with the Twins he slashed .248/.323/.324 and drove a vocal contingent of the fan base nuts by repeatedly winding up the regular at one of the infield spots. Third base, second base, shortstop. He left as a free agent and hasn't missed the postseason since.
• Silva spent four years in the Twins rotation, compiling a 47-45, 442 mark and averaging more than 190 innings a year.

That's where these guys' contributions end. Korecky was released, and Punto and Silva's departures as free agents did not bring back any compensation picks.

Buchanan was traded to San Diego for a Class A infielder: Jason Bartlett. Bartlett was with the Twins for three partial seasons and one full one, slashing .272/.341/.362 in those four seasons. His belated emergence as the full-time shortstop was a key to the division title run in 2006, in my opinion the best of the Ron Gardenhire teams.

Bartlett was traded to Tampa Bay. Unlike the previous trades listed here, this wasn't a clean, one-player for this package. The Twins included Matt Garza and Eduardo Moran in the trade and got back Delmon Young, Brendan Harris and Jason Pridie.

• Pridie was the outfield equivalent of Korecky; A short, ineffectual stint with the Twins (11 games, six plate appearances), then cut loose. (Like Korecky, he's still playing; he got four at-bats with Colorado in 2014).
• Harris spent three years with the Twins, playing some shortstop and some third base. He hit .252/.309/.360 with more than 1,000 plate appearances.
• Young had one big season in 2010 and three mediocre ones for the Twins, with a combined slash line of .287/.324/.429. 

Harris was included in the notorious J.J. Hardy trade: Hardy and Harris to Baltimore for Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson. The Twins released Jacobson after the 212 season, he stalled out in Double A for the Twins. Hoey had one lousy season with the Twins and was claimed on waivers by Toronto. So this branch of the Knoblauch tree ends there.

Lester Oliveros might
be the best bet to
keep the tree growing.

Young was traded to Detroit for Lester Oliveros and Cole Nelson. Nelson has been released; the Minnesota native pitched for the independent St. Paul Saints last summer. Oliveros, still only 26, has spent the past two years recovering from Tommy John surgery and is regarded as a serious candidate for the Twins bullpen in 2015.

So that's the Knoblauch tree so far. By Lindbergh's computation, it's the seventh-longest current tree in the majors. The longest is an incredible one: The Mets used a 1967 -- that's right, 1967 -- draft pick on Jon Matlack, and almost a half century later have David Wright to show for it. 

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.

A thought on Lester Oliveros' camp invite

Lester Oliveros had
one appearance for
the Twins in 2012;
he had a combined
ERA of 2.42 in
Double A and
Triple A.

Many of the players coming to the Twins major league spring training are either assured a place on the 25-man roster (Joe Mauer, Glen Perkins) or have a legitimate shot at winning a job (Pedro Florimon, Tyler Robertson). Some are there to be seen by the major league staff, either for potential use in 2013 (P.J. Walters probably fits into this category) or for longer-term purposes (Alex Meyer and Trevor May)

And then there's Lester Oliveros.

Oliveros had Tommy John surgery in August. He's not going be on the Opening Day roster in Minnesota, or in Rochester or New Britain, for that matter. He has no chance of catching the pitching coach's eye in camp. But he has that coveted major league invite anyway. Which raises the question, why?

Start with the roster games the Twins played with him this offseason. Oliveros -- acquired in August 2011 in the Delmon Young trade -- had been on the 40-man roster. The Twins non-tendered him this offseason -- which got him off the 40 -- and then re-signed him to a minor league contract. This spares them the expense of having him on the major league disabled list (and paying him a major league salary) as he rehabs the surgically-repaired elbow.

I assume that Oliveros, who was briefly a free agent, was guaranteed the spring training invite as a lure to remain in the organization.

And I can think of two possible advantages for him to have that invite:

1. He'll get a bigger per diem while in major league camp.
2. He may well have greater access to the rehab facilities as a major league invitee than as a minor leaguer.

The extra per diem for Oliveros is a rounding error in the context of the Twins payroll, and it's a low price to keep one of their more advanced bullpen power arms around while he gets back into condition to unleash his fastball once again.

Clearing room on the 40-man roster (updated)

Thomas Field's 2012 Topps card.

Last week, the Twins had 40 players on their roster. After a week of subtraction, they're now down to 37 36.

Wednesday: IF Thomas Field was lost on waivers to Anaheim
Thursday: CF Denard Span was traded to Washington; Alex Meyer, the pitcher they got back, isn't on the 40-man roster and probably won't be put on the 40 until he's put on the 25-man active roster.
Friday: RHP Deolis Guerra was outrighted to Rochester; RHP Lester Oliveros was nontendered.

The Span trade, of course, has gotten plenty of commentary, here and elsewhere. The other moves, not so much.

The Twins claimed Field on waivers from Colorado early in November. As I predicted when the Twins acquired him, the Twins tried to slip him through waivers themselves. On Wednesday we learned that Anaheim claimed him. So he's gone.

Deolis Guerra has
been in the Twins
organization since
2008, but is only 23.

The Twins probably picked Field up with the intent of making him the shortstop at Rochester. Now the organization has a bit of a hole to plug there. Last year the Red Wings used Brian Dozier or Pedro Florimon at short (Dozier to open and close the season, Florimon while Dozier was in Minnesota), with Tsuyoshi Nishioka at second base. Nishi won't be back, of course, and Dozier, Florimon and Eduardo Escobar are all in the mix for jobs at the big league level. I expect another infield addition in the Twins future.

Guerra, the last remaining piece from the Johan Santana trade, cleared waivers, which means nobody else wanted to give him a spot on their 40-man roster. He remains in the organization and will be in major league camp this spring. He was out of options anyway, so had he not cleared waivers now and didn't make the team the Twins would have had to waive him in the spring. Guerra had had a good start to his 2012 season and seemed likely to get a call-up, but tailed off and missed a good bit of time to injury.

Oliveros' nontender took me by surprise. Friday's deadline for making "qualifying offers" generally focuses on the arbitration-eligible players -- in the Twins case, Drew Butera, Jared Burton and Brian Duensing. All three were retained. Oliveros, a hard-thrower acquired in 2011's Delmon Young trade, will miss 2013 after having Tommy John surgery, and the Twins apparently decided it wasn't worth keeping him on the 40-man roster. (Update: The Twins have re-signed him to a minor league deal.)

All this frees up plenty of space for either free agent signings or activity in the Rule V draft. The word from Twins execs after the Span trade was that their focus at the winter meetings next week would be on talking to agents rather than trades, so making room was necessary.

Notes, quotes and comment

Commissioner Bud Selig had a backdrop of former
All-Stars for the announcement Wednesday that
Target Field would be the site of the 2014 All-Star game.
Behind the commish: Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Roy Smalley
and Paul Molitor.

 

This was the least-well-kept secret in sometime, but it's official: The 2014 All-Star Game will be played in Target Field.

Call me jaded, but in this era of interleague play and cable, the All-Star Game itself doesn't interest me as much as the Futures Game does. The All-Star Game is now a promotional vehicle for Fox; the Futures Game is a glimpse of, yeah, the future.

---

Also not a surprise: Scott Diamond on Wednesday dropped his appeal and began serving his  suspension. By dragging the process out beyond his Tuesday start, he pushed the time of his next start into September, when the rosters are expanded.

---

What is a surprise: San Deduno didn't walk a man in his seven shutout innings Wednesday. Ninety-eight pitches, 68 strikes — better than two strikes for every ball. I didn't think that kind of performance was possible from him.

Until he does it regularly, though, I'll consider this one a fluke — a fluke that had some help from the Seattle hitters.

---

Jeff Gray was outrighted to Triple A on Wednesday, which opened a spot on the 25-man roster for Chris Parmelee, who promptly stepped into the lineup as the right fielder. (He went 1-for-5 with two runs scored.) With Denard Span again day-to-day with his shoulder/collarbone issue, I would expect Parmelee to get a lot of playing time in right field (with Ben Revere playing center).

The Twins now have three openings on their 40-man roster. One will certainly be filled come September by P.J. Walters, who is apparently about ready to come off the 60-day disabled list.

As with Nick Blackburn, I don't see the Twins outrighting Gray only to turn around and restore him to the 40-man roster so that they can have him in the majors in September. I would think they could find something else to try.

---

Lester Oliveros, the hard-throwing relief prospect acquired last year in the Delmon Young trade, had elbow surgery Wednesday that blew into something more than removing bone chips. It turned into Tommy John surgery, which pretty much wipes out his 2013 season.

Minor league health matters

Four Twins prospects of some prominence are either in or out ...

RHP Alex Wimmers, first round pick in the 2010 draft, had Tommy John surgery on Thursday. He'd been sidelined for much of the season with what had been described as an elbow strain, and had thrown just five innings all year.

This is essentially the second straight wasted season in his development, and next season now promises to be a third. When the Twins drafted him (21st overall), he was reasonably expected to be a quick rise to the majors. For a team in need of starting pitching, his problems have really hurt.

Wimmers' case may have reverberations beyond the pitching staff. General manager Terry Ryan was widely described last week as irritated by the lengthy delay in reaching a diagnosis. I continue to expect, at some point, a shakeup in the organization's medical and/or training staffs.

Lester Oliveros had
a brief major league
call-up this season.

RHP Lester Oliveros, acquired almost a year ago when the Twins sent Delmon Young to Detroit, is out of the remainder of the season to having bone chips removed from his elbow. This is not as significant a surgery as Wimmers', and I would expect Oliveros to be a contender for a bullpen job in 2013.

When the Twins tabbed Luis Perdomo to fill a bullpen spot last month, a commenter wondered what the move implied for a handful of pitchers who, unlike Perdomo, were already on the 40-man roster. In Oliveros' case, the answer is now obvious: He was hurt.

Oliveros was having a good season, split between Double A and Triple A.

In better news ...

RHP Kyle Gibson, having made seven appearances for the complex team at  Fort Myers, is going to start moving up the ladder. Gibson had his Tommy John surgery almost a year ago and is described as throwing better than he has at any time in the Twins system.

Gibson was the Twins first-round pick in 2009 (22nd overall), and, as with Wimmers, his health problems have mattered on the big-league level..

2B/OF Eddie Rosario, sidelined earlier this summer when a line drive hit him in the face during batting practice, is back with Low A Beloit.

I wonder if, absent the injury, he would have gotten a promotion to High A Fort Myers. The hitting numbers -- .307/.371/.496 -- on their own merit a promotion. But my guess is that the organization would have kept him at Beloit on the basis that staying at one level would ease his transition from outfielder to second base.

The first cuts (are the shallowest)

Outfield prospect
Oswaldo Arcia was
optioned to High-A
Fort Myers rather
than Triple-A
Rochester, as the
other 40-man roster
demotees were.

The Twins on Thursday sent nine players to their minor-league camp. Add in the earlier season-ending injury to Joel Zumaya, and the major-league camp is down to 57 players -- a mere 32 more cuts to come.

The song says the first cut is the deepest, but that's not the case here. The deeper cuts are still to come.

Most of the Thursday cuts were pretty routine. Three were non-roster guys, one of whom (Steve Pearce) is out for the coming week anyway, another of whom (Danny Rams) is a catcher not needed with fewer pitchers in camp, and a third (Aaron Thompson) who is probably going to start in the minors and needs to be stretched out.

LaVelle Neal called the quick demotion of Scott Diamond a surprise. I don't see it that way. Diamond, like Thompson, figures to be a starter at Triple A. He had little chance to make the major league club --  the five projected starters, plus Anthony Swarzak, Matt Maloney, Terry Doyle and Liam Hendriks, are all ahead of him in the starter/long man pecking order as I see it.

That Darin Mastroanni
was among the first cuts
suggests that the
Twins are confident
that Denard Span
is sound.

I'm more surprised that Hendriks wasn't among the cuts. He too will be a starter, probably at Rochester, and needs the innings. Obviously they figure they can still get him the innings he needs for now.

What did come as a surprise were the demotions of Lester Oliveros and Deolis Guerra. Those two, as I saw it, entered camp as bona fide bullpen candidates. Instead, they're the first ones out.

Which hardly dooms their chances for Minnesota. Last spring Alex Burnett was among the first cuts. He was the first guy recalled once the season began stuck the rest of the way.

So the bullpen field thins a bit. We still can't declare anybody a clear favorite for one of the openings, however. 

Dissecting the Bill Smith era: The Delmon Young trade

Delmon Young hit some
big home runs for Detroit in
the postseason.

When: Aug. 15, 2011
What: In a waiver deal, the Twins sent outfielder Delmon Young to the Detroit Tigers for right-handed pitcher Lester Oliveros and left-handed pitcher Cole Nelson.
Value: Young had 10 total win shares in 2011; he had 0.1 WAR with the Twins and -0.1 with the Tigers. Oliveros had 1 win share for the season, 0.1 WAR with the Twins. Nelson, a Minnesota native, spent the season in high-A ball.
Twins motivation: They dumped a veteran they weren't planning to retain for two young pitchers (Oliveros is 23, Nelson 22).

This deal was the white flag, the moment at which the Twins conceded that they were not making a run at another AL Central title. This was the first -- and last -- time Bill Smith traded away a veteran for prospects in mid season; his previous in-season trades had gone the other way.

Young had a bizarre season. He displayed almost no power with the Twins (slugging percentage .357), with four homers in more than 300 at-bats, but the defensive metrics depicted an excellent left fielder. He hammered eight regular season homers in less than 170 at-bats with Detroit, and the metrics paint him as a disaster in the outfield there. The Baseball Reference version of wins above replacement actually has him playing better for the Twins than with the Tigers.

So brutal was Young in the outfield with Detroit that by season's end there was speculation that the Tigers would non-tender him (which is what the Twins would likely have done had they not traded him). That didn't happen, perhaps because Young bashed another five homers during the Tigers' two playoff rounds. (He and the Tigers reached an agreement on Tuesday, avoiding an arbitration hearing, for $6.75 million.)

One interesting aspect of this trade is that Jim Leyland installed Young in the No. 3 spot in the batting order, right in front of MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera. Even in 2010, in what appeared to be a breakout season, Young seldom got out of the bottom half of Ron Gardenhire's lineups.

Oliveros is in the mix for a bullpen role in 2012; like many Tigers prospects, he throws hard with uncertain control. (Baseball America says his is the best fastball in the Twins organization.) Nelson is another power arm, albeit further from the majors.

Completing the Young trade

The player to be named was named Tuesday: Lester Oliveros, right-handed reliever who had a brief stint in the majors earlier this year but has spent most of the season in the minors. He's 23, has good strikeout rates in the minors and some command issues. The Twins saw him twice during his call-up, July 22 and 23.

As a member of the Tigers' 40-man roster, he had to go through waivers before he could be sent to the Twins.

Oliveros entered the season ranked by Baseball America as the Tigers' 17th best prospect; Cole Nelson, the lefty in the deal, was listed as No. 30.

Basically, the Twins added to their bullpen inventory with this trade. They didn't clear a spot on the 40-man roster, because Oliveros replaces Young on the 40.