A trade tree

Follow the bouncing roster spot:

In 1999 the Twins drafted right handed pitcher Travis Bowyer in the 20th round. In 2001 they drafted Scott Tyler, also a right-handed pitcher, in the second round. Tyler never got above Double A, but Bowyer reached the majors for eight appearances in 2005.

The Twins traded the two after the 2005 season to the then-Florida Marlins for veteran second baseman Luis Castillo. Castillo was one of the "Piranhas" in 2006; in 2007, with the team out of contention and Castillo approaching free agency, the Twins shipped him to the New York Mets for two minor leaguers, outfielder Dustin Martin and catcher Drew Butera.

Martin is still active, playing this year in the Mexican League, but he has not reached the majors. Butera caught for the Twins 2010-13, then was traded to the Dodgers in a deadline deal for Miguel Sulbaran, a left-handed minor league pitcher.

The following spring, 2014, acting general manager Rob Antony (filling in while Terry Ryan recovered from his cancer treatment) traded Sulbaran to the Yankees for Eduardo Nunez. Sulbaran reached Triple A last year but has not appeared in a game at any level for any team this season.

Nunez, as we know, was a reserve player for the Twins in 2014 and 2015 before emerging as a superutility regular this year, starting games at shortstop, third base and second base and gaining the Twins' All-Star roster spot. As we also know, he was traded Thursday night to the Giants (Antony again) for Adalberto Mejia, a left-handed minor league pitcher.

And the future will tell what Mejia will do -- or be turned into.

This has not been a highly productive trade tree. The Twins have gotten a little more than two seasons of leadoff hitting (Castillo in 2006 and more than half of 2007 plus Nunez this year) and a handful of bench seasons (Butera and Nunez). But it's been more than 17 years since the Twins drafted Bowyer, and that move is still faintly echoing in the system.

Revisiting Nunez vs. Solarte vs. Sulbaran

Eduardo Nunez started three straight games at shortstop
against Kansas City this week.

Back at the start of the season, I was not impressed with the maneuvers that brought Eduardo Nunez to the Twins.

Half a season and 82 Nunez at-bats later, his addition looks a lot better than I reckoned it at the time, which means that he not only hasn't fallen on his face but has thrived in a superutility role. Nunez has seen time in the outfield, third base, shortstop and designated hitter for the Twins — and has hit.

I remain skeptical about his bat. Eighty-seven plate appearances don't outweigh the previous 827. He was a below-average hitter with the Yankees, and I don't know of any real reason to think that's changed.

Meanwhile, Miguel Sulbaran, the Class A lefty the Twins gave up to get Nunez, has a 2.86 ERA in the Florida State League (11 games, nine starts, 56.2 innings). He remains a long way from the majors, but this trade still has a chance to look really bad for the Twins someday. (Or Sulbaran could go the way of most A ball pitchers and never amount to anything.)

One point I made in April was that, in a very roundabout way (there's a gap of a couple of years), the Twins and Yankees essentially traded Nunez for Yangervis Solarte. Solarte spent years in the Twins farm system, but even after he hit .329/.367/.466 in Double A in 2011, the Twins didn't deem him worthy of a spot on the 40-man roster.

Solarte then spent two years in the Texas organization without a sniff of the majors, signed with the Yankees as a minor league free agent, beat out Nunez for an infield job in spring training, took over third base in April with a hot start ... and fell off a cliff in June. He hit .303 in April, .296 in May and .164 in June, and he gets to start July in the minors.

Nunez, who spent most of April in the minors with the Twins and two weeks of June on the disabled list, is suddenly seeing considerable action at shortstop. He started all three games against Kansas City at short, and had a couple starts there last month just before his injury.

I'm even more skeptical of Nunez as a shortstop than I am of him as a hitter. His defensive shortcomings were notorious among Yankees fans, and they were comparing him to the rangeless aged Derek Jeter. But Eduardo Escobar's hitting has slid in recent weeks (predictably), and Danny Santana is injured. The Twins are going nowhere in the standings; it doesn't hurt to take a look at Nunez as a shortstop, even if we should already have a pretty good idea of what we'll see.

Home opener: Short-handed, long review, bad trade

I went to the Twins home opener Monday. The weather was good, and the Kramarczuk's bratwurst was even better than I remembered.

But Kevin Correia pitched like Kevin Correia, and Sam Deduno committed another balk (that's two for him already), and the Twins were outmatched by the Oakland A's.

That's not surprising -- the A's have legitimate World Series aspirations this season, and the Twins do not. But there were a number of aspects beyond the score that soured my outlook on this team.

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As it turns out, the Twins didn't put either Oswaldo Arcia or Josh Willingham on the disabled list when they brought up Chris Herrmann. They put Jason Bartlett on the DL instead.

And in the ninth inning, down five runs, Pedro Florimon was allowed to hit for himself to lead off the inning. That's the way to wave the white flag. (He struck out.) Since the A's were using a righty at the moment, why not at least send Herrmann up?

Ron Gardenhire can say the Twins aren't going to play shorthanded this year. What they do, or at least what they're doing, is completely different. Watch -- they'll wait a week or more before DLing at least one of the ailing outfielders.

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The official review time on the non-home run by Jed Lowrie was 4:11. I had it exceeding five minutes.

This was the second marathon replay review involving the Twins this week, and I doubt they've been the only overly-long ones.

I not-so-humbly suggest that if the replay crew in New York can't make up its mind in 90 seconds or less, it's inconclusive and let's get on with the game.

Eduardo Nunez plays third base during a spring
training game for the Yankees.

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The Twins traded Class A lefty Miguel Sulbaran to the Yankees for infielder Eduardo Nunez, who had been designated for assignment last week. Nunez, 26, goes on the 40-man roster and will play at Rochester.

Nunez is a mediocre shortstop (that might be a generous evaluation) and not much of a hitter, and personally I wouldn't trade a lefty who had a 2.96 ERA in more than 100 innings in the Midwest League at age 19 for him. I'm not even sure I'd trade Bartlett for him, and I regard Bartlett's presence on the major league roster as an unamusing joke.

Here's something to chew on: The Yankees cut Nunez loose because he got beat out by Yangervis Solarte for their utility infielder job. Solarte spent six years in the Twins system and was jettisoned after hitting .329/.367/.466 in Double A, presumably because the Twins couldn't stand watching him try to field ground balls.

So the Twins dump Solarte, and the Yankees pick him up to dump Nunez, and the Twins pick up Nunez. Somebody's wrong on this series of moves.

That the Twins made this deal either tells us how dissatisfied they are with their current infield depth and/or starters or how unhappy they were that Sulbaran reported to camp in poor condition. Or both.

The player to be named, is named Miguel Sulbaran

So I was wrong on the return the Twins got when they traded Drew Butera to the Dodgers. There's a minor lesson in that for me (namely, that I have believed for years that Butera was more valued around the majors than his Internet critics believed, and I should have stuck with that belief when initially commenting on the deal).

Miguel Sulbaran is a legitimate prospect. He's not a great prospect -- I don't think he'll be cracking any top 20 prospect lists this winter -- but he's a left-handed pitcher, age 19, having a good season in low A ball. That's a decent return for a weak-hitting defensive specialist catcher who was unlikely to remain on Twins 40-man roster this offseason.

The drawback on Sulbaran is his size, or lack of it. He's listed at 5-foot-10, 185, and that's small for a pitcher.

But he has a good arm. From John Sickels' "Baseball Prospect Book 2013":

...has performed quite well at the lower levels of the farm system, showing a 90 MPH fastball along with an effective curveball and slider. He trains with Pedro and Ramon Martinez and is said to have a good sense for his craft despite his young age...

Sulbaran now changes teams in the Midwest League, going from the Dodgers affiliate in Midland, Mich. (Great Lakes Loons) to Cedar Rapids.

No guarantees on Sulbaran, obviously. He's young, he's small, and he's a long way from the majors. But there's stuff there to like. Whether he makes it to the majors or not, this was a good trade for the Twins.