Notes, quotes and comment

Regarding the pursuit of Shohei Otani: There is currently no posting system for Japanese players to come to the American majors, and the MLBPA -- the players union -- is apparently deeply unhappy that as matters stand, Otani will get a pittance compared to what his Japanese team, the Nippon Ham Fighters, will get.

The union on Thursday set a Monday deadline for an agreement on the matter. If no deal on the posting system is struck by then, it will keep Otani from playing in the U.S. next season.

I'll believe that happens when I see it.

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Two of the players the Twins deleted from their 40-man roster since their season ended have signed with new organizations: utilityman Niko Goodrum with the Tigers, lefty relief specialist Ryan O'Rourke with the Orioles. And pitcher Dereck Rodriguez, son of Hall of Fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez, signed with the Giants as a minor league free agent.

The Twins have yet to add minor leaguers to their 40. The deadline to do so before the Rule 5 draft is Monday.

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The Twins' radio broadcasts are returning to WCCO.

I'm not sure how big a deal this is. 'CCO isn't what it once was, and certainly losing the Twins after the 2006 season was part of that, but radio simply isn't the kingpin of baseball broadcasting anymore.

Still ... Cory Provus laps the field in terms of the four main broadcast voices for this team, and having the games on the clear-channel giant again will make it easier to find the games when traveling in outstate Minnesota.

I suspect this means the Pohlads plan to unload their radio properties. I don't live in range of Twin Cities FM, and I'm certainly no expect on the radio biz, but I'm a bit baffled that they couldn't make a go of a baseball-based FM station.

DIssecting the use of Niko Goodrum

A curious bit of usage of Niko Goodrum on Sunday. He got his first start with the Twins -- as a DH against a right-handed starter.

This is curious on a variety of levels, but let's start with the platoon splits the switch-hitter racked up in Rochester this year. Goodrum, as reported by Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press, had a .265 on-base percentage against righties, .386 against lefties. One would think that Paul Molitor would be looking for an opportunity to start Goodrum against southpaws, not against the likes of Ian Kennedy. What gives?

Molitor said he liked his swing better from the left side this spring. Thought he was a "little more dangerous" from that side. https://t.co/7YENQXRtFb

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) September 3, 2017

I wouldn't assume that Molitor is giving the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's quite possible that Molitor does indeed believe that Goodrum looks better hitting left handed. It's possible that Goodrum has hit better lefty in the past (I don't know). But the objective evidence on hand doesn't support using Goodrum against a righty.

Molitor may well have had other, unstated reasons for putting Goodrum in the lineup. But if he wanted to get the rookie a start quickly, he had an opportunity on Saturday to play him in left field against a lefty. Molitor went with Ehrie Adrianaza instead.

Goodrum went 0-for-3 Sunday with a pair of strikeouts. I would have found the decision curious had he gone 2-for-3.

Point of curiosity No. 2: On the face of it, a major point of having Niko Goodrum on your roster is in the number of positions he can play competently. DH negates his biggest strength.

I've long liked Bill James' description of how Earl Weaver built his "deep depth" rosters. Weaver, said James. looked for players who did something well enough for Weaver to want to get him in the game to do it. He had teams of specialists. Some were brilliant fielders who couldn't hit (Mark Belanger); some were platoon bats with defensive liabilities (Terry Crowley).

Rosters are markedly different now -- Weaver would never had imagined carrying 13 pitchers -- but the basic idea remains. What value does Player X have for you? Know the answer, and use him accordingly. DHing Goodrum does not meet that criteria.

Point of curiosity No. 3: Ian Kennedy is notably home run prone. The last three years -- pitching with cavernous home parks in San Diego and Kansas City -- he has surrendered 31, 33 and 28 homers. Goodrum hit 13 homers for Rochester (his first time in double digits); the long ball is not his forte.

This looks like a matchup made for Kennys Vargas, not Goodrum. But Vargas was locked onto the bench; when Molitor hit for Goodrum in the ninth, it was with Adrianaza.

Niko Goodrum, right-handed bat

There were a few hours of fret Thursday when word came out of the Twins clubhouse that Byron Buxton had injured his left hand and the early indications were that it was the hamate bone.

The hamate is a small, nonessential bone in the wrist that is slow to heal. The typical treatment is surgery -- which would have ended Buxton's season. Since Buxton is (at least by Baseball Reference's version of WAR) the Twins' best player, this would be a severe blow.

By 1 p.m., the news was considerably better:

Bone contusion for Buxton. Twins dodge a bullet there.

— LaVelle E. Neal III (@LaVelleNeal) August 31, 2017

Buxton didn't play Thursday. Zack Granite patrolled center between Eddie Rosario and Max Kepler -- three left-handed hitters.

Even with the favorable diagnosis for Buxton, it's not certain when he will again be hitting without pain in the left hand/wrist. The Twins struggle as it is against lefties, and a Rosario-Granite-Kepler outfield is obviously at a platoon disadvantage against southpaws. And Robbie Grossman, a switch-hitter with a track record of being better from the right side, remains sidelined with a broken thumb.

Enter, come Saturday, Niko Goodrum. The Twins will bring up three players Saturday from Triple A Rochester -- left-handed pitchers Buddy Boshers and Nik Turley to bolster the bullpen, and Goodrum, a 2010 second-round draft pick who I saw  with Cedar Rapids back in 2013. He was mostly a shortstop that year, with Jorge Polanco at second, but the next year Polanco was playing short and Goodrum started moving around the field.

With Rochester this year, Goodrum started

• 35 games at second base
• 19 games at third base
• 41 games in right field
• 14 games in center field
• 9 games at shortstop
• 1 game at first base
• 1 game in left field

Somehow he missed catching.

The real reason he's getting called up: He mashed lefties.

Niko Goodrum's splits this year at ROC:

vs. RHP: .233/.265/.407 (305 AB)
vs. LHP: .331/.386/.465  (127 AB)#mntwins

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) August 31, 2017

The Twins can use some of that, for certain.

Goodrum is not on the 40-man roster, and I believe the Twins will have to drop somebody to get him on. The move apparently won't come until Saturday.

What's on second

Jorge Polanco hit .308
last year in Low A ball.

The Twins have accumulated an intriguing collection of second basemen in their organization. Or, more accurately, a collection of possible second basemen.

Start at the big league level, where Brian Dozier has the job. If his 2013 production is sustained, he's capable of being the regular second baseman for a good team -- hitting at the bottom of the order. The Twins don't now have a deep enough lineup to avoid having him in the top half. But he's a good defensive second baseman, and he has shown some pop, just not a very good batting average or on-base percentage.

Then there's Eddie Rosario, currently serving a 50-game suspension for a repeat recreational drug violation. Rosario projects to be something of the opposite to Dozier: At best an average defender at the keystone, but a line-drive machine capable of filling a top-of-the-order role.

Rosario finished 2013 at Double A, but where he'll pick up after serving his suspension is uncertain. (He was excused from spring training for unspecified "personal reasons," and as far as I know has yet to report to the Twins complex in Fort Myers.) Had he not been suspended, I thought it likely that he'd have moved up to Triple A; as it is, he might have to re-serve some High A time.

High A is where Jorge Polanco is. Polanco is a 20-year-old Dominican who was signed in the same summer as Miguel Sano and Max Kepler, who got more attention. While Polanco's at a lower level of play, he might offer a combination of Dozier's defense and Rosario's batting average.

Also at Fort Myers with Polanco: his DP partner at Cedar Rapids last year, Niko Goodrum, a second-round pick in 2010; and Levi Michael, the Twins' first round pick in 2011 as a shortstop.

This is Michael's third season at High A, and he's been largely relegated to second base. The Twins probably hoped when they drafted him that by now he'd be ready to challenge for the shortstop job, if not have already pushed Pedro Florimon aside. It hasn't happened, and probably won't. Goodrum, a tall, lean bundle of fast-twitch fibers, might not be destined to be a shortstop either; there's been chatter practically since he was drafted about a possible position switch for him.

Still, the Twins have sizable financial investments in all three middle infielders. And all three are on the same team.

Every time I saw Polanco working on defense during my time wandering the minor league fields last month, it was as a shortstop. And when the Miracle opened their season Thursday night, Polanco was at short, Michael at second and Goodrum at third base.

I suspect that Polanco's arm, like Dozier's, is a bit light for shortstop. If there's a major-league shortstop in that bunch, my money's on Goodrum. But it makes sense for the Twins to take a serious look at Polanco at short. Second base is getting a bit crowded, and his bat would certainly play at shortstop.

Two games in Cedar Rapids: Random thoughts

Adam Brett Walker returns to the
dugout after his home run Monday.
Max Kepler (22) is about to get in the box.

Wrapping up some loose ends:

As I've mentioned at least once, Terry Ryan, the Twins general manager, attended the Quad Cities series. Here, via the Cedar Rapids Gazette, is what he had to say about some of the Twins prospects.

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Adam Brett Walker II hit his 24th homer of the season in the ninth inning Monday -- too little, too late to be a factor in the game, which the Kernels lost 6-2.

Walker was the Twins third-round pick in the 2012 draft, a big (listed at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds) right-handed right fielder who grew up in Milwaukee and went to college in Florida. He has legitimate power and runs well enough to be eight-for-eight in steal attempts.

Keith Law of ESPN has been asked about ABW2 repeatedly in his chats, and always gives the same response: He's old for the league, the Twins shouldn't be sending college players to the Midwest League, this isn't proving anything.

Beyond that, I'm wary of Walker's walk/strikeout ratio, almost 4 K's for every BB. The .282 batting average is nice, the .548 slugging percentage is very good (especially for the Midwest League), but the on-base percentage is unimpressive. This was also true for Walker in the Appy League last summer.

Jake Mauer (12) had a lengthy but
non-histronic dispute with the umpire
over an interference call Sunday.

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Jake Mauer — older brother of Joe and the Cedar Rapids manager — was thrown out of Sunday's game after Travis Harrison was called out for interfering with the catcher on a Walker steal attempt.

It wasn't until the next inning, when Tommy Watkins emerged from the dugout to coach at third base, that I realized Mauer had been tossed. True to his Mauerness, Jake even got ejected in a low key manner.

Baseball America's annual Tools issue has Jake Mauer voted as the Midwest League's best managerial prospect. I suspect he'll someday emerge onto the major league staff, although Jim Crikket is probably right that it won't happen while Joe is the centerpiece of the roster.

Still, it seems pretty well-established that the elder Mauer is not merely a nepotism hire.

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A food discovery at Veterans Memorial Stadium I'll be sure to repeat in future visits: The fried popcorn shrimp. Yum. It may not be traditional ballpark fare, but I like.

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When I went to a game in May, Niko Goodrum played first base and Jorge Polanco was the shortstop. At these two games, they were at their more accustomed positions, shortstop for Goodrum, second base for Polanco.

They looked pretty good there. Second base is almost certainly a better fit for Polanco's arm than shortstop. Goodrum — listed as 6-feet-4 himself — faces the same "is he too big for shortstop" question that I mentioned in the Correa post.

Polanco continues to keep his batting average above .300 and remains in the middle of the Kernels lineup. Goodrum's slumped of late — his average had fallen below .250 while I was in CR — and while it seems obvious that Polanco will move up to High A next year, I wonder if Goodrum might not wind up repeating Low A.

A game in Cedar Rapids, Part III: The infield

Jorge Polanco, playing shortstop, reacts to a pitch.

Byron Buxton may be the biggest reason for Minnesotans to make the trek to Cedar Rapids to see the Twin's low-A affiliate, but the Kernels have a number of other significant prospects on the roster.

Niko Goodrum tried his
hand at first base Monday.

Not all of them were in the lineup Monday, and some of those who were, were in unusual positions.

D.J. Hicks, the usual first baseman and cleanup hitter in Jake Mauer's lineup, sat out Monday's game. Niko Goodrum is usually the shortstop and No. 2 hitter; on Monday he played first base and hit third. Jorge Polanco, usually the second baseman and No. 3 hitter, played short and hit cleanup. Travis Harrison was at his accustomed third base and hit fifth.

Goodrum, Polanco and Harrison are all significant prospects. Goodrum was a second round selection in the 2010 draft. Polanco, still a teenager (he turns 20 in July) was signed as a free agent out of the Domincan in the same summer as Miguel Sano; Sano's signing overshadowed Polanco's, but Polanco got a $700,000 bonus as a 16-year-old, evidence of his perceived talent. And Harrison was a supplemental first round pick in 2011.

Some observations:

Polanco has hit probably better than anticipated the past two seasons (he was hitting .326 on the season Monday, according to the scoreboard), but his arm has been described as probably too weak for shortstop. I'll buy that critique. He had one play Monday on which he ranged well to his left to scoop the grounder only to make a terrible throw to first base. He had another in which he backhanded the ball but then dropped it trying to hurry his transfer.

The problem for Polanco as a second baseman is that Eddie Rosario, an even better-regarded prospect, is playing well there a level ahead of him. It makes sense for the Twins to try to push Polanco at shortstop.

At the plate Monday, Polanco was 0-for-3 with a walk and a sac fly.

Travis Harrison awaits the pitch he
swatted out of the park in the seventh
inning.

Goodrum didn't look like a novice at first base, but he's not likely to have that position be a big part of his future. He's listed as 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, and he looks it — long and slender. He was 1-for-4, but what a one — a bases-loaded triple in the sixth that put the Kernels ahead to stay. He's not as fast as Byron Buxton (who is?) but he flew around the bases on that triple.

The big question with Goodrum is whether he's destined to play short, and watching him play first does little to suggest an answer to that question. I'm not sure he has the bat to play a less demanding position.

Harrison can hit, and showed it: 3-for-4 with a home run. But his ability to remain at third base has been questioned, and he didn't look good in the field. Some third basemen can get by with range that amounts to a step and a dive; Harrison didn't show even that Monday.

Like Polanco, Harrison is a level behind a better prospect at his position (in Harrison's case, Sano). I rather suspect one of the two will wind up at first base if they both become regulars with the Twins.

Minor league shortstops

Levi Michael as a collegian in 2011. He figures to
repeat high-A -- and to spend the season at shortstop.

The Twins on Wednesday made no announcement about Kevin Correia. (I think they're toying with those of us who think signing him is a mistake, raising our hopes that all those reports early in the week were erroneous.)

They did, however, announce eight minor-league free-agent signings, only three of which came with invites to major league camp. None of those three strike me as particularly likely to see any major league time.

I wanted to take note of Ray Olmedo, however. When the Twins sought to open space on their 40-man roster just before the winter meetings and lost Tommy Field on waivers, I predicted that they'd be in the market for a shortstop for Triple A Rochester. And here he is. Olmedo's 31, and if he spends time in Target Field it will be a very bad sign.

It got me thinking -- again -- about the shortstops in the farm system. I've said this before: The Twins have a lousy track record in developing shortstops, going back to the time the franchise arrived in the Twin Cities. Zoilo Versalles, the Twins original shortstop, was homegrown; the best truly homegrown shortstop since Versalles was probably Danny Thompson, and he had only one true season as a regular.

The Twins' best shortstops since Versalles -- Roy Smalley, Greg Gagne, Cristian Guzman, Jason Bartlett -- all came from some other organization.

If that streak is to be broken, the player is probably lower in the organization. Probably.

Doing a little projecting for the full-season affiliates, from the bottom up:

Cedar Rapids (low-A): Niko Goodrum and Jorge Polanco are likely to move up the ladder from Elizabethton. Goodrum, a second-round pick in 2010, repeated the Appy League, and while his hitting numbers didn't really improve, he did cut his errors almost in half. Polanco, a Domincan signed the same summer as Miguel Sano, spent most of the season at second base and hit well. Goodrum is 20; Polanco is 19. Goodrum may eventually move to the outfield; Polanco could, should that happen, return to shortstop.

Fort Myers (high-A): I rather suspect Levi Michael, the 2011 first-round pick, will repeat the Florida State League. He largely split 2012 between second base and shortstop there, but spent more time at second. Tyler Grimes, who saw the most time at short in low-A in 2012, is apparently going to try catching in 2013; I think Michael will be seeing more shortstop time as a result, especially since Eddie Rosario ought to be getting most of the second base time at this level.

It'll be a key season for Michael; the Twins are reportedly inclined to blame his rough 2012 on the injures he had as a collegian in 2011, but he needs to show something in the coming season. An infield with Rosario, Sano and Michael -- certainly last spring, that was the long-term dream for the Twins. It seems a good bit less likely this offseason than it did last.

New Britain (Double A): Danny Santana moved ahead of Michael in the pecking order with a strong season at Fort Myers and won a spot on the 40-man roster. His walk/strikeout ratio even in a good season (29 walks, 77 strikeouts) doesn't bode well for continuing his 2012 success at higher levels, but he just turned 22 last month. Now entering the upper levels of the farm system.

Rochester (Triple A): Olmedo plus organizational lifers James Beresford and Estarlin de los Santos,either of whom may repeat Double A and/or play second base. Nothing to see here in terms of potential long-term regular shortstops.