Figures from bullpens past

The sour news Thursday morning for former Twins closer Joe Nathan -- a second round of Tommy John surgery -- made me realize that as difficult as this year has been for the current Twins bullpen, it's been rougher for a lot of former Twins relievers.

A quick accounting:

Nathan has faced one batter, Torii Hunter in the season opener. He struck Hunter out on a disputed call, then went on the disabled. list. On Wednesday Nathan was to throw 30 pitches on a rehab assignment. He got through 10 and walked off the mound holding his elbow. The diagnosis the next day: tears of his ulnar collateral ligament and flexor pronator. He vows to return, but ... this will be his second ligament replacement, and the track record on repeat TJ surgeries is not good. Plus, face it, he's 40.
LaTroy Hawkins is even older (42), and had said this would be his final season. He opened as the closer for Colorado, but was stripped of the job last week. On Thursday he went on the disabled list.

Jose Mijares was released in spring training by Cincinnati. He was released the previous spring by Boston and hasn't pitched in the majors since 2013. And after he was cut by the Reds, he got hit with a 50-game suspension for a "drug of abuse." Mijares is only 30, he's left-handed, and he has a career ERA of 3.23 and a lifetime BA allowed to left-handers of .223, but he's wearing out his welcome very quickly.

Jesse Crain left the Twins after 2010, signed with the White Sox, had a big year by throwing his slider far more often, made the All-Star team in 2013 -- and got hurt before the game was played. He's since bounced from the White Sox to Tampa Bay to Houston and back to the White Sox, where he's in extended spring training.

Matt Capps was in spring training with the Braves, was released, then re-signed by the Braves. If he's still in their organization, he isn't pitching. He has just 12 professional innings in the past  two years. He's only 31, but it's not looking good.

Jared Burton, let go by the Twins, signed a minor-league deal with the Yankees, who released him during spring training, then re-signed him to another minor-league deal. This avoided paying him a retention bonus (which may have been part of the Braves' maneuvering with Capps as well). Still, we're several weeks into the season and Burton hasn't appeared in a game, majors or minors.

That's a full bullpen of former Twins mainstays who are now injured or just hanging on.

It's not all bleak for the ex-Twins. Anthony Swarzak landed with Cleveland; signed to a minor-legue contract after the Twins cut him loose, he made the major league team without benefit of an opt-out clause. But he's been the exception.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Matt Capps, Cleveland Indian (probably)

Matt Capps: 3.68
with 14 saves — and
three months on the
disabled list — in
2012 with the Twins.

Matt Capps finally knows where he'll report when spring training camps open — the much-criticized former closer for the Twins signed a minor league deal with invitation to major-league camp with the Cleveland Indians on Thursday.

So much for the recent blogger speculation that Capps might return to the Twins yet again.

That Capps had to settle for a minor-league deal suggests that his one-game return in late September didn't do much to assure potential employers that he's sound. He made only 29 appearances in 2012 for the Twins.

Presumably he has an out clause in this contract — if he doesn't make the major league roster by Day X, he can opt for his release. He's only 29, and he does have a career ERA of 3.52 and 138 saves. He's not great, but he shouldn't be on the fringe of a roster either.

Assuming, of course, that he's sound.

Cleveland has a closer — Chris Perez, who is a rather Capps-like closer himself (75 saves the past two seasons with a combined 3.45 ERA). There's been speculation that the Tribe would trade Perez this winter, but that hasn't happened.

I would think that Capps would have taken a major-league deal from anybody over a minor-league deal, but that none was available. To the extent that he was picking from comparable minor-league offerings, he may have chosen Cleveland on the theory that the glory job might become available.

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.

First moves in reshaping the roster

Matt Capps: 1-4,
3.68 in 2012 with
14 saves.

The Twins announced on Wednesday their first roster moves of the offseason:

• They will not pick up their option on Matt Capps;
• They lost relief prospect Carlos Guterriez on waivers to the Chicago Cubs;
• They outrighted outfielder Matt Carson and right-handed pitchers Jeff Manship, Luis Perdomo, Esmerling Vasquez, Kyle Waldrop and P.J. Walters;
• They restored pitchers Scott Baker, Cole De Vries and Carl Pavano from the disabled list. 

Capps, Baker and Pavano will be free agents after the World Series, but for now they remain on the Twins 40-man roster. The others aren't, and many of them will also become free agents. For now, the Twins have 35 players on the 40-man roster.

I wouldn't rule out the Twins re-signing some of these guys. Walters and Waldrop might be of interest on minor league deals, and Capps' option was too pricey ($6 milion) for the role he would play if he returned.

But I don't expect any of them to be re-signed. If Capps does return, it will be for less than the $4 million he got in 2012, and without the promise of the closer's role. I think he'll look elsewhere. And for the others, being taken off the 40-man roster implies that they'd be behind the pitchers they did retain.

Walters, for example, would rank behind DeVries and Sam Deduno in the rotation pecking order, and the indications are that those two, and probably some others, will at best be duking it out for the fifth starter spot.

I'm slightly disappointed in the outrighting of Waldrop; I'd rather see him in the 2013 bullpen than Alex Burnett. But both are fringy middle relievers.

Some other notes:

Carlos Gutierrez, a
first-round pick,
never reached the
majors with the Twins.

Baker, who had Tommy John surgery around Opening Day and did not pitch, and the Twins are said to be making progress on a contract. It's uncertain Baker will be ready to pitch in the majors when the 2013 season begins.

Gutierrez was a first-round pick in 2007 who only appeared in 10 games last year for Triple A Rochester because of injury. The Cubs took a flier on him, but I'm not sure why they'd prefer him to Waldrop. They're both sinker-ballers with low strikeout rates, but as far as I can tell, Waldrop is the better of the two.

Vasquez put up some interesting numbers as a starter in Triple A, but given several starts in September in the majors displayed a reluctance to throw a breaking ball. Perdomo throws hard but without any real clue.

Eye on 2013: Matt Capps

Matt Capps' 2012:
30 games, 14 saves
and about half a
season on the
disabled list.

Matt Capps, semi-official whipping boy of the Twins Internet, opened the season as closer and was OK in that role — not great, but acceptable — into June.

He picked up saves on June 2, 3, 4 and 6 and a win on June 8— five games in seven days, throwing a total of just eight pitches in two of those outings — and at that point things appear to have started to splutter physically. He was given a week between appearances between June 15 and 23, then went on the disabled list for almost three weeks. He came back, made two appearances in three days, went back on the DL, and didn't return until last week.

It's the second year in a row that Capps has experienced arm issues that emerged soon after a period of daily work. That doesn't work well with modern bullpen usage, which tends to lean heavily on the idea that relievers can be used often in short bursts.

Glen Perkins is now in command of the ninth inning job, and nobody seriously believes that the Twins will pick up Capps' $6 million option for 2013. Capps is back, in reality, to audition for  the other 29 teams. He wants to show that his arm is sound going into the offseason and his expected free agency.

But he hasn't gotten much showing in. When he was reactivated, Ron Gardenhire made it known that

• Capps wouldn't be used on consecutive days and
• Capps had been told that he wasn't coming back to make one appearance and go home.

Capps returned for two series against teams in the playoff hunt — the Yankees and Tigers — and while the Twins didn't win either series, they were generally playing close games. He has made one appearance, mopping up a loss to the Yankees on Sept. 26, and as far as I know hasn't even warmed up since.

The Twins have a 10-man bullpen right now — well, call it nine, because one of them (probably Brian Duensing) will be called upon to start Tuesday in Sam Deduno's stead — and everybody else is a possible contributor to the 2013 Twins. Gardenhire took the games against the Yankees and Tigers seriously, not as a time to experiment, and right now Perkins, Jared Burton and Casey Fein are the top dogs in the bullpen.

So Capps' idleness last week is explicable. There are three games left, on the road against the non-contending Toronto Blue Jays, and if Capps goes unused in those games, I will be curious about why he was reactivated last week. One isolated appearance wouldn't seem to be much assurance to potential employers.

Reshaping the staff once again

Brian Duensing's tenure in the
starting rotation lasted four starts.

Matt Capps, back to the disabled list.

Nick Blackburn, back to the majors and the rotation.

Brian Duensing, back to the bullpen.

The only part of this I truly like is Duesning in a relief role. I went into some detail on this just the other day, so I won't rehash the reasons. I thought this would happen at some point, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon.

Blackburn's return was inevitable; the Twins aren't paying him $4.75 million to pitch in Triple A. He's to start Friday. I don't really foresee any change from what happened before his demotion; while his ERA for Rochester was 2.57, he struck out just seven men in 21 innings. He got hit before, he'll get hit again.

Capps made just two low-leverage appearances after his first disabled list stint; his velocity was down, and he gave up a homer in the second appearance on Monday night. He won't be eligible to come off the DL until the trade deadline; he's not getting moved anywhere this month.

Capps has become a popular scapegoat, and unfairly so. Some won't forgive him for the price the front office paid to get him; some won't forgive him for re-upping with the Twins last winter. It's silly-stupid to blame him for either move; if Terry Ryan-Bill Smith-Ron Gardenhire overvalue him, that's not Capps' fault.

He's a decent relief pitcher when healthy. He hasn't been healthy all the time. And it's truly obnoxious to hear the same people who criticize Joe Mauer for sitting when he's hurt rip Capps for pitching when he's hurt.

With Capps out of the picture indefinitely, it appears Glen Perkins and Jared Burton will continue to share the closer duties.

One thing to watch now is how Tyler Robertson and Duensing are used. Robertson has held the LOOGY role while Duensing was in the rotation, and had some good moments and some bad. I was impressed Monday with how well Robertson handled Jim Thome after Gardenhire had him intentionally walk J.J. Hardy in the sixth inning.

Retiring lefties is Robertson's forte; it is also Duensing's.

When Duensing was inserted into the rotation, righties had an OPS (on-base-plus-slugging) of just .645 against him. Today their OPS against Duensing is .909.

The Twins have a new surplus of left-handed relievers. How much value there is in that remains to be seen.

Notes from the weekend

It's gotta be the shoes: Brian Dozier and his
pink cleats on Mother's Day. Dozier hit his
first major league homer.

I spent more time Sunday listening to the radio broadcast (yard work) than the TV one, but Dick-n-Bert apparently drew a Scott Diamond-Cliff Lee comparison.

This elicited some jeers in my Twitter feed, but I'm not about to ridicule that comparison. I made it here last September.

That particular post, as it turns out, is one of the more highly-viewed posts in this blog's tenure. For all I know, my observation may have trickled to the broadcasters and contaminated their analysis. Or not. Either way, they're responsible for what they say on the air, and I'm responsible for what I write here.

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Wilson Ramos, the young catcher the Twins gave up during the 2010 season to acquire Matt Capps, blew out his knee Saturday while pursuing a passed ball and will miss the remainder of the 2012 season.

This is another blow to the Nationals, who have lost outfielder Jayson Werth to a broken wrist, been without Ryan Zimmerman for much of the season and haven't had Mike Morse (31 homers last year) in the lineup yet. And it can't be much fun for Ramos either.

Wilson Ramos is helped off the field after
tearing a knee ligament.

The Ramos-Capps trade is widely regarded as a disaster for the Twins. I'm not that down on it. It did what it was intended to at the time — solidify the then-softening bullpen for the stretch run. Capps did have a worse 2011 season than Ramos did, but the odds are that Capps' 2012 will be better than Ramos'.

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Carl Pavano had an MRI on his shoulder, which is said to have found minor inflammation. This may or may not explain his decreased velocity; inflammation pretty much comes with the territory of being a major league pitcher.

The results are being forwarded to another, outside, specialist (the one who determined that Scott Baker was indeed injured and needed elbow surgery), and in the meantime Pavano is to make his scheduled start today.

It's a situation worth watching. The two best starters this season at Rochester, Diamond and P.J. Walters, are already up; their places have been taken by Liam Hendriks and Matt Maloney (the latter having cleared waivers), and I wouldn't expect an early call-up for either of them.

Francisco Liriano hasn't had a bullpen outing yet, so he's not a likely option if Pavano must miss time. Which would appear to leave Anthony Swarzak or Brian Duensing — and there are indications that Duensing is the likely choice. Duensing has been very good in the bullpen, but if the starters can't get to him, he's not helping the cause much.

The Twins say the goal with Liriano is to eventually return him to the starting rotation. It figures to be difficult to swap out any more struggling starters without bringing him back into the mix.

Pic of the Week

Visual proof that baseballs are bigger than Matt Capps.

The Twins had almost two weeks of drills. Now it's time for the meaningless games down in Florida.

As far as I'm concerned, a B game in Fort Myers is more interesting than any Super Bowl ever played.

Dissecting the Bill Smith era: The Capps-Ramos trade

Wilson Ramos hit
16 home runs in 2011
for the Washington
Nationals, then
survived a kidnapping
in his native
Venezuela.

When: July 29, 2010
What: The Twins acquired relief pitcher Matt Capps from Washington for catcher Wilson Ramos and left-handed pitcher Joe Testa
Value: Capps had 13 total win shares in 2010 and 1.1 WAR during his time with the Twins that season. He was retained for 2011 and earned 7 win shares and 0.8 WAR. Ramos had 3 total win shares in 2010 and 13 more last season; he has had 2.7 WAR with Washington. Testa has not reached the majors and pitched in high A ball in 2011 at age 25.
Twins motivation: Bullpen help for the pennant push; also an eye to the 2011 bullpen.

This trade soured badly on the Twins in 2011. Capps, relied on to anchor a reconstructed bullpen, had a poor season. Ramos took over the Nationals catching job and finished fourth in the National League rookie of the year voting. Ramos' absence from the Twins system was easily noted with Joe Mauer spending much of the season on the shelf. Even the unheralded Testa put up a sub-2.00 ERA in the minors.

All of this might be forgiven had Capps played a major role in a World Series trip in 2010. But the Twins got swept out in the first round, and the closer never had a lead to protect.

The trade, to state the obvious, has not worked for the Twins. What happened?

A big part of the trade's failure may be in how the Twins (and others) viewed Ramos.

He was at the time generally considered one of Minnesota's top prospects: Major-league ready (or nearly so) at a premium position. He had some drawbacks as well. He had a history in the minors of injury. He was hitting a mere .241 in Triple A at the time of the trade. And in a brief stint with the big league team during a Mauer injury, he followed an initial flurry of base hits with a series of easy outs on breaking balls.

There had been debate (with this corner of the Internet having its say) on whether Ramos was more valuable to the Twins as a long-term backup to Joe Mauer (who was, at the time of the trade, signed for another eight seasons) or as trade bait. Ron Gardenhire during spring training briefly made a public argument for keeping Ramos on the 25-man roster. Ramos was instead optioned to Triple A, which prevented his service time clock from starting and theoretically enhanced his trade appeal.

Going into 2011, Baseball America had dropped Ramos on its prospect list from No. 58 (entering 2010) to No. 96, an indication that the consensus opinion on him around the game had soured somewhat.

The Twins, in short, sold Ramos at the low point of his value.

Matt Capps is 6-7 with 31 saves
in his time with the Twins. 

As for why the Twins traded for a closer: Joe Nathan had blown out his elbow early in spring training. Jon Rauch had filled in at least adequately in the ninth-inning role (21 saves, four blown saves) but was showing signs of deterioration. (In nine appearances in the month of July, he had just one hitless outing, and his ERA had risen from 2.40 to 3.05.) The Twins felt a need to shore up the bullpen, and once Capps came on board, Rauch seldom appeared in a game situation (two holds, one of them a one-out appearance, and a win in an extra-inning game).

The Twins also knew that Rauch, Jesse Crain and Matt Guerrier were all destined for free agency and were unlikely to return in 2011. Capps would not be free-agent eligible until after 2011; they were trading for him not only for immediate use, but as a bullpen cornerstone in the coming season.

It is safe to say that the trade was not viewed well by Twins-devoted bloggers at the time, and even less so now. But the Twins are doubling down on this deal. They clearly like Capps as a pitcher -- not only enough to give up Ramos for him, but enough to bring him back for 2012 after 2011 didn't go well on any level.

This series is called "Dissecting the Bill Smith era", but one of my basic precepts is that Smith did not make these moves in a vacuum.  I know of no reason to believe that he substituted his judgment over those of more established talent evaluators, particularly Terry Ryan and Mike Radcliffe.

If the Twins overvalued Capps and undervalued Ramos -- and off 2011, that appears to be the case -- it was an organizational failure.

Winter meetings, Day One

The Twins reportedly lined up on Monday the return of Matt Capps, which was their big news from the first day of the winter meetings.

The initial Internet response to the well-telegraphed signing is predictably negative.

I'm not enthused, but I'm hardly outraged by the move either. As I've said before, my concern is that the bullpen be deep enough that Ron Gardenhire doesn't wreck his few good arms through overwork. Capps alone doesn't do that, but his presence does deepen the bullpen.

One of the common threads to the objections raised by my blogging brethren —  which I shared in my initial post — is that the Twins are bypassing a compensatory draft pick. Terry Ryan's response to that factor, from the Strib story:

Ryan said compensation picks don't factor much into the Twins' decisions on players. "We'll take it," Ryan said, "but we'd rather have the player."

I don't believe for a moment that the Twins don't take the value of compensation picks into serious consideration. Their historic reluctance to give up first round picks to sign Type A free agents is evidence of that.

But I wonder if they are uncertain today of the real value of those picks under the new labor agreement and the formalized, enforceable restrictions on spending. I haven't seen any explanation of how the spending ceilings are to be set, but if the ceilings are too low, it may be difficult to get high school prospects to sign— which will push teams to overdraft collegians and thin out the quality choices by the time the sandwich picks come up.

If that's a realistic possibility, then Ryan has a good point about preferring the player to the pick. Draft picks are hardly a sure thing.

Pedro Florimon hit .267/.344/.367
at Double A Bowie in 2011.

---

In a lower profile move, the Twins claimed shortstop Pedro Florimon on waivers from Baltimore.

I don't understand the Florimon pickup. That doesn't make it bad. It just means that it's not transparent enough for me to understand.

Florimon is a switch-hitter, turns 25 on Saturday, and got an eight at-bat cuppa in September. He is said to be fast (although his minor-league stolen base stats don't impress) and struggle with breaking balls. He's been bouncing around between A and AA ball in the Baltimore system for a while, and 2011 was pretty clearly his best season at the plate.

My guess is that he's Triple A fodder rather than a threat to make the 25-man roster. But the Twins saw fit to fill one of their 40-man roster spots with him. I don't know what they have in mind. I doubt he's better than Brian Dozier.

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Ron Santo didn't live
long enough to see his
election to the Hall.

As of now, the Florimon pickup gives the Twins 39 players on the 40-man roster. If/when the Capps signing becomes official, the roster will be full, and if the Twins intend to do something in the Rule V draft Thursday — they have the second pick — they'll have to clear a spot. They've picked up so many marginal players on waivers since the last week or so of the regular season (Esmerling Vazquez, Matt Maloney, Jeff Gray, Florimon) that I wouldn't think it that difficult to do.

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Ron Santo made the Hall of Fame, which is OK by me. Jim Kaat came one vote shy of getting in; that's also OK. Tony Oliva got eight votes, four votes short of what he needed. Unless the Hall changes the Veterans Committee system (again), Oliva and Kaat will be eligible for consideration again in 2014.

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Rumor mill (and my reactions):

• LaVelle Neal said Monday that there's a growing expectation that Michael Cuddyer will re-sign with the Twins (makes sense to me). 
• Ken Rosenthal said the Twins are one of four teams who have made an offer to Mark Buehrle (someone else will actually sign him).
• Rhett Bollinger (MLB.com) said the Twins have a tentative meeting on Thursday with Josh Willingham's agent, apparently as a Plan B on Cuddyer (Cuddyer makes a lot more sense for the Twins for a variety of reasons).
• ESPN Deportes says the Twins have "expressed interest" in Carlos Guillen (as if they need more guys who can't stay off the DL).

The return of Matt Capps

Matt Capps: Back for
another season, at least.

Let the complaining begin: The word all over the Internet Monday evening was that the Twins and Matt Capps had reached a contract agreement, supposedly one year plus an option. No official announcement; that probably will come after Capps passes a physical.

I'll let this post stand as my opinion on bringing Capps back. I think he'll bounce back in 2012 -- at least if Ron Gardenhire can choke back the impulse to use him for multiple innings on consecutive days, which is where I suspect Capps' forearm tendinitis originated.

The only real issue here (assuming the price was right, and the Twins certainly wouldn't have done the deal if the price wasn't in their range) is that they're losing out on a compensatory draft pick, and as I understand the new labor agreement, that pick isn't going to be there if he leaves as a free agent after 2012 or 2013.

Salary Capps

In the same conference call this week in which Terry Ryan stated the Twins arbitration intentions regarding ranked free agents Michael Cuddyer, Matt Capps and Jason Kubel and in which he confirmed the Ryan Doumit signing, Ryan made a curious statement regarding the Twins bullpen plans in the post-Joe Nathan era:

History says you might want to have somebody with (closing) experience, and usually people pitch themselves into that situation. Granted, (Glen Perkins) had a very good year; he just doesn't have the experience. 

Matt Capps,
proven closer.

The word "might" qualifies that statement enough that I won't call it absolute rubbish. But rubbish it is.

A truly accurate reading of the history of bullpens would be more heavily on the side of inexperience. As Aaron Gleeman immediately pointed out on Twitter, Joe Nathan had one career save when the Twins made him their closer. His predecessor in the job, Eddie Guardado, hadn't been a closer before the Twins handed him the job. Rick Aguliera had seven career saves when Tom Kelly converted him from starter to closer.

Now, I don't have a problem with deciding that Perkins is more valuable pitching in the seventh and eighth innings than he would be locked into the ninth-inning job. (I think he is.) And it may be the Twins don't trust Perkins sufficiently to hand him the glory job in November. They may think it better to make him earn it by outpitching somebody this spring.

That somebody may yet be Matt Capps. Nobody's going to argue that Capps had a good 2011, but Ryan has suggested that his problems stemmed from pitching through inflammation in his wrist. Capps' new status as a "modified Type B" gives the Twins some incentive to let him go, and much of the Twins' Internet community is eager to be rid of him.  But reading between the lines, I think Ryan, Ron Gardenhire and company would prefer to keep Capps.

There is a price point at which I would expect Capps to return. That price point is probably somewhat south of his 2011 salary (he pulled in more than $7 million) and somewhat south of Joe Nathan's deal with Texas (also more than $7 million in each of the next two years). Capps at $5 million or less a year? That seems like a real possibility to me. (Seth Stohs thinks it should be less than half that, but I don't think he'll go that cheap.)

And I'm fine with that. I don't want the closer job to be a priority. I want bullpen depth to be a priority. Gardenhire's history with bullpens -- this is an accurate reading of history -- tells me that one closer and one strong set-up guy isn't enough. He needs a closer and three guys (at least three) for the seventh and eighth innings. If he has too few, he's either going to lose games with poor relievers or get his useful ones hurt through overwork.

If the Twins add a "proven closer," they're a step closer to having that depth coming into camp than they would be if Perkins is the leading candidate to close.

Arbitration domination

As a "modified Type B" free agent, Matt Capps
does not have to be offered arbitration to bring the
Twins a compensatory draft pick if he signs elsewhere.

Wednesday was the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to their ranked free agents.

The Twins have three ranked free agents: Michael Cuddyer, a "modified" Type A; Jason Kubel, Type B; and Matt Capps, "modified" Type B. These designations, as I understand it, are useful for this offseason only.

A straight Type A -- Albert Pujols, for example -- offered arbitration will cost a signing team draft picks. Six of the free agents originally listed as Type A -- including Cuddyer -- are now in a new category. If they are offered arbitration and sign elsewhere, the jilted team gets two picks, but the signing team doesn't lose picks.

This figures to greatly enhance interest in Cuddyer. Under last winter's rules, a team signing Cuddyer was essentially trading a high draft pick to the Twins. Now the Twins would still get the picks, but the new team isn't losing anything.

The Twins continue to voice interest in retaining Cuddyer, but this development makes it more likely that he'll sign elsewhere.

The Capps situation is better for the Twins. Capps was originally a Type A, and as with Matt Guerrier last winter, the Twins would probably have declined to offer him arbitration rather than risk having him accept. But the new labor deal decouples arbitration from the five modified Type Bs. The Twins will collect a compensatory pick if Capps signs elsewhere without risking arbitration. (Capps is one of five in the new category.)

Bottom line for the Twins: They offered arbitration to Cuddyer and Kubel, did not to Capps. If all three sign elsewhere, the Twins will reap four extra draft picks in June, giving them six of the first 40 or so picks in the draft.

---

The Ryan Doumit signing became official Wednesday.

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.

One run is seldom enough

Another disaster for Matt Capps,
who now has been charged with
seven blown saves — and that doesn't
count two that Glen Perkins
bailed him out on.

The popular reaction is to blame Matt Capps for Friday night's 2-1 loss, and there is some justification for that: The Twins closer did not pitch well.

It's not just the gopher ball he threw to Eric Hosmer. It's the four-pitch walk he surrendered to the leadoff man in the ninth, which is just asking for trouble.

He was ineffective in his previous three outings at Target Field, and the fact that he fared well in Chicago in the series that led into the All-Star break doesn't hide what the home fans are seeing.

But ...

1) The Twins bullpen is not deep enough to shunt Capps into a low-leverage role. Even if Joe Nathan is capable physically of handling back-to-back(-to-back?) outings and thus of reclaiming the closer's role in full, Nathan and Glen Perkins are not bullpen enough to see this team through. If Capps isn't a third trustable arm, who is?

2) The Twins scored one run. One. Against Luke Hochever. Who entered the game with an ERA on the season of 5.46, which is about what he's done for his career (5.56), which is almost a match for what he's had against the Twins specifically (5.54).

The Twins mounted a few threats against Hochever, but never cashed in. The run they did score came on a two-out wild pitch. Minnesota's won a few 1-0 games this season, but that's a hard way to go.

So blame Capps. But save some of the blame for Alexi Casilla, and Michael Cuddyer, and Jim Thome, and Danny Valencia (who just missed duplicating Hosmer's ninth-inning home-run heroics) ... The lineup had chances for big innings, but didn't cash in.

The closer conundrum

Matt Capps (center)
retired two of the five
hitters he faced Tuesday.

Tuesday marked the third straight save opportunity that Matt Capps was unable to close out, and the second time that Glen Perkins had to trot in to seal the deal for the Twins.

Obviously, this cannot be allowed to continue. But the immediate alternatives to Capps as closer create other problems.

Joe Nathan is an obvious possibility -- but Ron Gardenhire has yet to use Nathan in consecutive games. As long as such ginger use is the rule for the post-surgical Nathan, it will be difficult to run the bullpen with an eye to getting him the ball for the ninth inning.

Perkins is another possibility -- but that creates a major void in the setup job, where Perkins is currently doing double duty, covering the eighth inning when Nathan's not available and serving as the top lefty as well.

If Jose Mijares were doing what he's supposed to be doing, Perkins wouldn't be so vital in the seventh and eighth innings. But Mijares hasn't pitched since June 27, and I assume that he's spent the past week trying to find and eliminate whatever flaw has robbed him of his command.

One way or another, the Twins need to get Capps straightened out, and soon. Their bullpen isn't sufficiently deep to allow them to hold him out of winnable games, especially if Mijares remains untrustworthy.

Closer fireworks and the psychology of the bullpen

Matt Capps described
Saturday as the
worst day of his career.

On Saturday, Matt Capps came in to pitch the ninth inning with a three-run lead. He gave up four runs in two-thirds of an inning, and the Twins lost.

On Sunday, Capps came in for the ninth with a two-run lead. Two singles and one out later, he left. Glen Perkins struck out Prince Fielder and Casey McGehee to end it.

For better or worse, bullpen use today is built around roles. Pitchers expect it, even demand it of their managers. A manager who isn't predicable to his charges loses their confidence and eventually their respect, and a manager who loses the confidence and respect of his team loses his job. Managers have the right and obligation to change a pitcher's role for the betterment of the team, but the expectation is that those changes will be clear to the pitchers involved.

And the roles begin at the end, with the ninth-inning closer.

Glen Perkins got his first
major-league save on Sunday.

Capps had been effective entering the weekend. He had given up just one run in 10 outings in June, and pitched well once Ron Gardenhire stopped trying to get four and five-out saves from him. But this was a bad weekend for him, and  now there's speculation -- from both distant bloggers who don't enter the clubhouse and traditional media -- that he may have lost, or be losing, the job.

Gardenhire says Capps is still his closer. And I'm fine with that. I think that it IS important to relief pitchers to to have predictable roles, and I DON'T think it's important that the best relief pitcher be relegated to one-inning save situations. I would rather have the team's more reliable relievers used in the most important situations, and, Saturday's debacle notwithstanding, three-run leads in the ninth are not particularly high leverage.

Last year, in the second half, the most reliable reliever was Jesse Crain, and the Twins thrived on using him to get out of jams in the seventh or eighth innings. Right now -- on the morning of July 4, 2011 -- I believe the two most reliable relievers in the Minnesota bullpen are Glen Perkins and Joe Nathan, and I believe the Twins are better off using them to get to Capps.

But again, the key thing in such decisions is what the clubhouse thinks. Right or wrong, the closer role is seen as the pinnacle of relief pitching. It's where the money is. Nathan and Capps combine to make about $19 million because they have a lot of saves on their stat sheets. Gardenhire is right to want to keep Capps in the role, but another bad outing could force a change, just as it did in April, when Nathan gave way to Capps.

Matt Capps and long save opportunities

Matt Capps' ERA is now 5.09 — and he's the most
reliable man in the Twins bullpen right now.

I was going to title this "The overworked Matt Capps," but I'm not casting a judgment on how he's been used so much as making observations about how he's been used.

What is obvious: Ron Gardenhire is using Capps differently than he has ever used his closer in the past. That is (my opinion) more a symptom of the problem than a cause — Gardenhire is reluctant to trust his other relievers with leads — but it's not working.

Capps opened the 2011 season as the primary set-up man to Joe Nathan and inherited the closer's mantle in mid April after Nathan flopped in consecutive save opportunities. Through that month, Gardenhire followed his usual protocol of bringing the closer, whichever man held the job,in at the start of the ninth inning -- three-out save opportunities.

That changed this month. Capps has been brought in four times in May in "long" save opportunities — before the ninth inning, seeking to get at least four outs. He converted the first of those four, blew the next three.

He had just one long save opp in his partial 2010 season with the Twins. His predecessor as closer in 2010, Jon Rauch, was never bought in for a save opp earlier than the ninth inning.

Nathan, the closer for several seasons before his elbow injury, had three long save chances in 2009 and two each in 2008, 2007 and 2006.

In the five previous seasons, Gardenhire's closers averaged two long save opps a year. He has doubled that this month alone.

Again: I'm not criticizing Gardenhire here. Other than Glen Perkins (now on the disabled list), nobody in his bullpen has emerged as a credible late-inning option. Gardenhire is using his best reliever earlier than he would prefer in an effort to win winnable games, and, at least in theory, I can't argue with that approach.

I do think that (a) these longer outings aren't good for Capps, and (b) they aren't protecting the leads.

And (c) it's time to try something else in the eighth inning. Who that might be ... that's the rub.

Bullpen candidate profile: Matt Capps

Matt Capps has 109
career saves.

Pitcher: Matt Capps
Throws: Right
Age: 27
Roster status: 40-man roster, arbitration eligible
Chance of making team: He only misses if injured

I started this series with one of the few certainties in the Minnesota bullpen (Jose Mijares); I close it with another.

Matt Capps is a Proven Closer, with the $7 million contract such status "earns." But the early indications are that Joe Nathan will be the first choice to close out wins, leaving Capps to be the primary set-up man.

Which figures to be less lucrative in the long run, but carries a different reward. This is Capps' first spring training with a team that thoroughly expects to be in the playoffs come October.

He'll get another run at the closer job someday -- if not with the Twins, with somebody else. But he's not a big strikeout guy, which means he's never going to be looked upon as one of the very best closers in the game. Successful second-tier closers like Capps have a tendency to play second-fiddle to a bigger name down the stretch after a midseason trade. In this case, it's starting in April rather than August.

But this won't last past this year. Nathan is on the last year of his contract; Capps is on a one-year deal. The Twins are paying the two a total in excess of $19 million, which is substantial coin for the privilege of having the closer job backed up.

One of them may well be back in 2012. I doubt both will be.