Imagining the Twins outfield without Span

Denard Span is hitting .280/.344/.384 this year.

The metaphorical dam holding back the anticipated flood of pre-deadline trades appeared to break Monday afternoon. None, however, involved the Twins.

One of the names often bandied about -- last summer and this -- as trade bait is that of Denard Span, the Minnesota center fielder and leadoff hitter. I'm not going to argue that he should or shouldn't be traded -- the answer to that depends on who the Twins get in such a trade.

No, my thinking is along these lines: If Span is traded, and if the Twins don't get an outfielder who clearly should be playing as part of the deal (they probably wouldn't), what would the Twins outfield look like the rest of the way?

It's easy and obvious enough to say that Josh Willingham would remain in left field and that Ben Revere would shift over to center (and move into the leadoff spot as well). Right field is the question.

Option A: Chris Parmelee. He's spent most of his sporadic major league time at first base, but he's played almost as much right field in the minors as first.

As the roster is currently constructed, there's no real use for him; Justin Morneau/Joe Mauer/Ryan Doumit are splitting first base, DH and catcher, and Revere has taken over right field. But Parmelee has hit in Triple A (.302/.446/.510), and it makes sense to find some PT for him in the majors.


Drawback: Parmelee's not going to help the pitching staff much in right. Like Willingham, he'll have to hit to justify his lineup spot. 


Option B: Darin Mastroianni. The opposite of Parmelee: A right-handed hitter who is a good defensive outfielder, very fast, not a lot of power.


If Ron Gardenhire were so inclined, a Mastroianni-Parmelee platoon might make some sense. (It would also, as somebody -- I think Kirsten Brown -- said on Twitter a while back, sound like an Olive Garden entree.)


Drawback: Mastroianni is probably better suited to the fourth outfielder role than a regular's job.


Option C: Move Trevor Plouffe to right, with (most likely) Danny Valencia getting a fresh shot at third base.


Drawback: Valencia hasn't really earned a return. He entered Monday hitting .249/.287/.399 for Rochester.


Option D: Somebody now playing at Double A: Joe Benson, Oswaldo Arcia, Rene Tosoni.


Drawbacks: If Valencia hasn't earned a return, that goes double for Benson and Tosoni.  Arcia's been in New Britain about a month, and I can't see the Twins pushing him up two levels so quickly. If the Twins do go for one of these guys, however, I'd like to be Arcia.

Contemplating Rene Tosoni

Rene Tosoni: A home run
on Tuesday, four strikeouts
on Wednesday. He's hitting
.171 in 35 at-bats.

A while back, in a post about the stalled career of New Ulm native Jamie Hoffmann, I outlined the traditional model of the fourth or fifth outfielder — left-handed (or switch-hitter) with the speed to play center field but lacking the bat to play regularly.

Rene Tosoni, who has been getting semi-regular playing time while Delmon Young is on the disabled list, does not exactly fill those requirements. Left-handed, yes. Center fielder, not so much. The prospect books suggest he could play there, but off what little we've seen during this brief trial, he's as much a center fielder as Michael Cuddyer is.

He looks like a 'tweener to me — not enough defense to play center regularly, not enough bat for an outfield corner. I suspect he's about 40 or 30 years late, that his tools would have been a better fit with the platoon-oriented managers of the '70s and '80s.

But in a future Twins outfield that could feature multiple regulars with center-field speed — Denard Span, Ben Revere, Joe Benson, Aaron Hicks — Tosoni might fit a bench role. On the current team, he doesn't offer anything the Young-Cuddyer-Jason Kubel troika is missing.

Which makes him a likely demotion if Young is indeed activated before today's game. Revere should stick because he can play center and goes back to Rochester when Jason Repko is ready.

A cold afternoon at the ball park

With the confluence Thursday of a furlough day for me, a Twin Cities meeting for my wife and a noon Twins game with available tickets, I went.

Brrr. And. as a Twins fan, Grrr.

Taking the tarp off the
field on a cold, damp day.

I don't mind confessing that I didn't make it though the whole fiasco. For that matter, most of the people in my section -- section 319, with an excellent view down the right field foul line -- didn't make it through all nine innings (although it's quite possible that some of them either took shelter in the nearby Twins Pub or under the radiant heaters).

A few thoughts:

Jim Hoey impressed me more than his line score would suggest. He was lit up for three runs when the Twins tried to get eight outs from him, but he was very good for the first time through the order. (Ben Zobrist's three-run homer was immediately preceeded by a hit-and-run single on which I'm sure Matt Joyce broke his bat.)

Jose Mijares was not good. He got just two outs and needed 37 pitches to do so. (In comparison, Hoey got his eight outs on 44 pitches.) And the less said about Nick Blackburn, the better. Like Liriano the night before, Blackburn couldn't or wouldn't throw strikes.

The Rays abused the battery of Blackburn and Steve Holm on the bases. It's a very fast team -- at least three men in their lineup for the nooner are faster than anybody the Twins have (B.J. Upton, Sam Fuld and Sean Rodriguez) -- and Holm's arm doesn't impress me.

Rene Tosoni was probably the only Twins player who could be happy with that game. Two hits in his major league debut.

The non-roster outfielders

Continuing my obsession with the 25th spot on the Twins roster — specifically my belief, as described in the Monday print column, that the Twins need a true outfielder on the bench more than they need a second infielder:

Jacque Jones is not the only non-roster outfielder in major league camp. (Major league camp includes the 40 players on the roster and selected players with minor-league contracts. Most of the minor leaguers are down the street in the minor league complex, or will be when they report.)

Also invited: Ben Revere, the Twins' 2007 first-round draft pick; Rene Tosoni, MVP of the 2009 Futures Game; Juan Portes, who hit .297 in Double-A last season; Brian Dinkleman, who has spent most of his minor league career playing second base but started seeing time in left field last season; and Chris Parmelee, first round pick in 2006. (Dinkleman and Portes are the two on the left in the above photo, along with Jason Kubel, Denard Span and Delmon Young.)

Parmelee is a slow power hitter, splits his time between first base and an outfield corner, and hasn't cracked Double-A yet. He's not a candidate to play center field.

Dinkleman played in Double A last season, but his limited outfield experience has been in a corner as well. (He appears to hit well enough to be a possible 2B down the road; that the Twins are testing him as an outfielder suggests that they're not thrilled with his defense. That he was left off the 40 this winter and wasn't taken by another organization suggests the same.) Not a candidate.

Portes has bounced from position to position — second base, third base, all three outfield spots — and it's unclear from this distance how adept he is at any of them. As a hitter, he profiles as a reserve outfielder — a singles and doubles hitter, good average but not a lot of power — but whether he's a guy they want to play much in center, I doubt the Twins know. That's probably why he got an invite, so the coaching staff can form a judgment on his suitability. He's got a chance to be an injury callup this year.

Revere gets more pub than the rest of this crew put together, partly because he was a surprise pick in 2007, partly because he threatened to hit .400 in low A ball in 2008 (he ended a .379). He's a shrimp (listed at 5-8, 166) and the consensus is that he's never going to hit for power. He had just 19 extra-base hits last season in high A ball, and while the Fort Myers park saps power, that's not much. Were this a year from now, I'd figure him to be the front-runner for the reserve job. But he hasn't seen Double-A yet, and he's not making the big-league roster this spring — or probably at all this year.

Tosoni looks like a bit of a tweener — maybe not enough power to be a regular in an outfield corner, maybe not fast enough to be a full-time center fielder — certainly not in a system with Denard Span, Revere, Joe Benson and Aaron Hicks. Sounds like a fourth outfielder type to me. Played all season at Double-A, with more playing time than Portes. Turns 24 in July. He's from Canada, and last year was his first season playing anything resembling a full schedule.

If they go with a fourth outfielder from the players now in camp, I rank the likelihood Jones, Tosoni, and nobody. Everybody on that list got something to prove, and spring training may not prove anything.