No Mo Lo Mo and other notes from the weekend

Logan Morrison is now on the disabled list and done for the season, with hip surgery pending.

The Twins could pick up his $8 million option for 2019. My instinct is that they will pay the $1 million buyout and let him hit free agency again.

I will go so far as to say that there's no way both Morrison and Joe Mauer are back in 2019. They are both left-handed hitters, both over 30 and both limited to first base in the field.

My current reading of the Mauer situation is:

• He wants to play in 2019
• He doesn't want to go elsewhere to do so

If both those assumptions are accurate, Mauer will be back for his age 36 season. And I think the roster makes more sense if there is a right-handed hitter complementing him for the 1B/DH roles.

The Morrison signing made sense. It didn't work. I don't know how much the hip issue had to do with his struggles this year, but I think the Twins will move on.

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Baseball Reference's team pages display mug shots of that team's top 12 players by WAR. For the Twins at this typing, the top 12 includes two guys no longer with with the team (Eduardo Escobar and Brian Dozier), a DL-list pitcher with four starts (Adalberto Mejia), a shortstop still shy of 150 plate appearances (Jorge Polanco) and an outfielder likewise shy of 150 plate appearances (Jake Cave).

Mauer is not among the top 12, even though he leads the team in the most important hitting stat, on-base percentage (150 PA minimum).

It has been a disappointing season for the Minnesota icon, especially after such a solid 2017. He had the lengthy DL stint with concussion symptoms as well, so his return is far from a foregone conclusion. Both parties, the Twins and Mauer, could logically say no. I just think they're both inclined to yes.

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Kohl Stewart's debut Sunday matched  the Keith Law scouting report referenced here last week. He throws strikes and lacks an out pitch. That might work if the defense is of genuine high quality, but that's not the 2018 Twins. In his fatal fifth inning, the balls in play turned into hits.

His plus is a lot of ground balls. His minus is that the Twins aren't particularly adept at turning ground balls into outs. Paul Molitor gave him a shortstop at third base to try to help with that, but ... ultimately, it's real tough to be a starting pitcher in the second decade of the 21st century with a below-average strikeout rate.

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I see I forgot to do a Pic of the Week. Probably a sign that I should retire that Sunday feature of the blog.

No LoMo (for a few games)

Logan Morrison was placed on the disabled list Thursday; with the All Star break coming up, the slumper-slugger may miss only six games with what is described as chronic hip impingment.

The way he's played, we might wish it were more. He has a dismal slash line (.193/.287/.367) and has looked at least as bad afield when he's playing first base in Joe Mauer's stead.

That last may be deceiving. Morrison grades out in the metrics, at least as listed by Baseball Reference, as a slightly better than average first baseman. It may be that Mauer is so good that Morrison's flaws are glaringly obvious, or it may be that Morrison's miscues have been particularly costly and thus stand out in our memories.

But the biggest issue with Morrison is the bat. He simply hasn't hit. Part of it may be, again, bad luck -- he has lost a few "home runs" to Target Field's high right field wall, and his batting average on balls in play is a dismal .213. But it should also be noted that Morrison's 38-homer outburst in 2017 was markedly higher long-ball production than in his previous seasons.

Most of us thought the Twins had made a coup by signing Morrison late in spring training. It certainly hasn't worked out that way.

Rough day at the office

Monday was not a good day for the Twins.

Not only did they get shut down by the personification of a nonentity (that description is probably an oxymoron, but so be it) and literally throw the game away in the field, but they learned that Jason Castro isn't coming back as expected from his knee problem. And Frank Quilici, a beloved player, manager and broadcaster of the 1960s and 70s, died.

Start with Castro. Their No. 1 catcher was eligible to come off the disabled list today, but instead he's to have surgery for the third time on his right knee. This time it's for his meniscus, a piece of cartilege. It didn't respond as expected to a cortisone shot, so here comes the knife.

Four to six weeks is the prognosis. I'll wager on the longer time span, given Castro's fairly extensive history with that joint.

So Mitch Garver and Bobby Wilson get a genuine opportunity. We haven't really seen as much of Garver in the 10 days as I expected -- Wilson started four games, I believe, and seems to be particularly paired with Fernando Romero.

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Quilici was a utility infielder who didn't hit much -- lifetime batting average .214, with five homers in a five-year career. He was part of the 1965 pennant winners' second base melange, but I remember him largely as a defensive sub for Harmon Killebrew when the slugger was playing third base. (Quilici, according to Baseball Reference, played third in 159 games but started only 31 of those games.)

He got the manager's job in midseason 1972 when Bill Rigney got the ax, less than two years after his final game as a player. He got three full seasons in as skipper and wound up a little south of .500.

Then he joined Herb Carneal in the radio booth; in his ghost-written autobiography, Herb said Frank was his favorite broadcast partner.

Quilici seems to have been a easy fellow to like. That isn't necessarily a plus for a manager, but I don't know that the early 70s Twins were going anywhere under any manager. He is the one guy Tom Kelly played for in the majors, and he is the last manager to play Rod Carew regularly at second base.

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As for Monday's game: Ugh. Logan Morrison botched up a bunt play -- looked to third, realized he wasn't throwing out the speedy Dee Gordon, then threw the ball down the right field line, which scored Gordon with the only run of the game. Gordon reached on a double on which Eddie Rosario appeared to get a poor jump. Later in the inning Max Kepler lost a ball in the lights, which was ruled a single and got Trevor Hildenberger charged with an earned run as well as the loss. Ugly inning.

Dick-and-Roy were insisting earlier in the game that Morrison is a good defensive first baseman, and that is indeed his reputation, but he hasn't been very good afield with the Twins.

And Wade LeBlanc ... well, I looked him up on Baseball Reference. This is, somehow, his 10th major league season, but that really overstates it. He has less than five years of service time, which means he's been not only bouncing between organizations (seven organizations, with some doubling up) but between those major league clubs and the minors.

Left-handed and breathing. Those are his credentials. And he shut down the Twins. It's one thing to be stifled by Shohei Ohtani; it's another to be this futile against Wade LeBlanc.

LeBlanc's travels: He signed with the Angels in the offseason of  '13-14. The Angels waived him in June, and the Yankees claimed him. The Yankees released him two weeks later, and the Angels promptly re-signed him. That's not unprecedented, but it's unusual.

Logan Morrison and the four-man outfield

The Houston Astros have deployed a four-man outfield on occasion this young season. The first to get the treatment was Joey Gallo of the Texas Rangers. Logan Morrison on Monday night was the most recent.

Both are left-handed power hitters of, let us say, limited batting averages. Gallo is about as close to a "three true outcomes" (strikeout, walk, home run) hitter as we may ever see. Last year he had 532 plate appearances; 312 of them resulted in one of those three outcomes.

Morrison isn't nearly as extreme (601 PA in 2017, with 268 walks, strikeouts and homers), but the idea is the same. 

In Morrison's case, the four-man outfield was trotted out when he got to two strikes (and no runner on second). The Astros had third baseman Alex Bregman playing back by the warning track in left field, and absolutely nobody on the left side of the infield. The three "real" outfielders were in center to right, and the remaining infielders were all on the first base side of second.

The "obvious" response is the bunt to the left side, but that's unlikely to be attempted with two strikes, especially by somebody as unaccustomed to the bunt as Morrison. 

The flip side of this aggressive defensive positioning is that it may be unnecessary. Morrison went to two strikes in 314 plate appearances; he slashed .148/.258/.311 in those trips. Get to two strikes on him -- the fewer balls the better -- and the real work of the at-bat is pretty much over. 

The Twins go 'LoMo'

It was reported Sunday that the Twins have a tentative agreement with free-agent first baseman Logan Morrison, pending a physical.

Morrison, 30, was better known a few years ago as a Twitter provocateur than for his hitting exploits, but he abandoned the social media platform and reworked his swing in a conscious effort to hit more fly balls. The result last season was 38 homers, most 40 percent more than his previous career high. He doesn't hit for average, but he draws walks, hits long balls nnd is a pretty decent glove at first base.

The breakout season didn't do much for him in free agency. The Twins landed him for a one-year, $6.5 million guarantee. (There are vesting options and inventives; it could top out at two years, 16 million.) This is pretty cheap even if 2017 was a fluke.

Morrison will help this lineup. He's not a perfect fit for this roster, because he's left-handed  and rhe lineup is overloaded with left-handed hitters: Joe Mauer, Eddie Rosario, Max Kepler, Jason Castro, now Morrison. All fall off against southpaws. (Morrison's OPS was more than 140 points lower when facing lefties than righties last year.) The Twins figure to punish righties, but opponents will be scraping up lefites to face them.

And Morrison is limited to first base in the field. He came up as an outfielder with the Marlins, but was atrocious enough to get moved to first base fairly quickly. This means that to have him, Mauer and Miguel Sano in the lineup simultanously Sano has to be able to play third base. Sano's post-surgical condition makes that somewhat less than certain.

The price was right, and Morrison is without question a roster upgrade. But there are devils in the details.

Taking the 5

One of the sillier things baseball teams occasionally do is retire a number for reasons unrelated to anybody who actually wore the number.

One such is now creating a bit of a controversy around the Miami Marlins. The Florida Marlins retired the number 5 even before they played their first game to honor Carl Barger, the team president who died four months before the expansion team's debut. They picked the number 5 to mothball because that was Joe DiMaggio's number, and DiMaggio was Barger's favorite player. Now, some 20 years later, Logan Morrison wants to wear the number (in memory of his father, whose favorite player was George Brett), and the Marlins are "unretiring" the number. Hey, they have a new stadium, a new name, a new logo -- let's put their one retired number back into play.

And the Barger family, which had apparently been ignoring messages from the Marlins for a while, is upset.

Unretiring numbers is a silly thing to do, or it should be. The core principle ought to be: You retire the number if it is so closely associated with a particular player that it will be jarring, if not unthinkable, for anybody else to wear it for that team again.

Retiring a number for a team president, or owner (as the Angels did in retiring 26 for Gene Autry on the basis that he was their 26th man, or as the Cardinals did in retiring 85 for Gussie Busch when the beer baron was 85 years old) is sillier than unretiring it. You want to honor those guys, fine -- but do it in a way appropriate to their role.

Of course, not many players would want to wear 85. But 5 is a rather prestigious number -- legitimately retired by seven franchises, for six Hall of Famers (DiMaggio, Brett, Brooks Robinson, Hank Greenberg, Johnny Bench and Lou Boudreau) plus Jeff Bagwell -- and 26 is pretty common also. Taking those numbers out of circulation for suit-and-tie guys who didn't actually wear it is lame.

The goofiest officially retired number belongs to the Cleveland Indians: 455. That's "retired" in honor of their 455 consecutive sold-out games. And I put the word "retired" in quotation marks because who ever heard of a three-digit uniform number? It's not a legitimate number to retire.