Affiliates current and former

One thing that has gone well for the Twins the past week-plus: They extended their Triple A affiliation with the Rochester Redwings.

There had been some speculation about that in the immediate wake of Terry Ryan's firing, especially considering that the New York Mets are a presumably better geographic fit for an upstate New York team, and the Mets want, for a variety of reasons, to get their affiliation out of Las Vegas.

This 2013 Wall Street Journal piece explains the  odd Mets-Vegas pairing well:

Only a handful of team-affiliate agreements expire each year, and if one of them isn't renewed, it creates a game of musical chairs. Las Vegas is the chair no team wants.

And the Mets have become the fanny no chair wants.

"They're undesirable," said Dave Rosenfield, a longtime Norfolk (Va.) Tides executive. "Nobody wants them."

The story is more than three years old, but as far as I can tell, it's not dated. The Vegas stadium hasn't been replaced, the Wilpons still own the Mets, and Vegas is still in the desert.

The Redwings, incidentally, have had a pretty good season, even if they appear unlikely to make the International League playoffs. It has certainly been a hectic one for player movement. Earlier this summer the Wings' play-by-play announcer tweeted that there were only three position players left from the opening roster -- and no pitchers.

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Two years ago the Twins switched Double-A affiliations, leaving the New Britain RockCats (Eastern League) for Chattanooga (Southern League). This came as the RockCats ownership announced plans to abandon New Britain for nearby Hartford.

The team, now branded the Hartford Yard Goats, will spend the entire season on the road. The new stadium in Hartford is unfinished, and nothing as been done on it in months as the city wrangles with contractors and team, And this week, Baseball America reports, the Eastern League president said the Yard Goats may never play a game in Hartford.

The Twins got out of that mess just in time.

Scott Diamond, Ryan Pressly and the Rochester pitching staff

The Twins weren't just settling the major league roster late last week and into this week. They have four minor league teams starting play this week as well: Triple A Rochester, Double A New Britain, High A Fort Myers and Low A Cedar Rapids.

As of Sunday evening, the Rochester Red Wings website and the Cedar Rapids Kernels site appeared to have updated, accurate rosters -- at least rosters that made sense. The New Britain roster was far from complete, and the Fort Myers one appeared to have last year's pitching staff listed.

Anyway, I was struck Sunday by the Rochester pitching staff. Twelve pitchers, seven of them left-handed. All 12 were in major league camp. (The 12 does not include Michael Tonkin, who was optioned out last week and now will instead open the season on the big league roster while Brian Duensing is on paternity leave. I presume Tonkin will be sent down again when Duensing rejoins the big club, and Rochester will then have 13 pitchers -- or somebody will be sent down a notch to New Britain.)

I was poking around the roster because Scott Diamond accepted his assignment to Rochester on Saturday rather than declare free agency, and I was thinking about how he might be used.

We can count on this: Alex Meyer and Trevor May are going to be in the Red Wings rotation.

At least one beat writer said Diamond and Kris Johnson are the primary candidates should a starter be needed in the early going. (Johnson is on the 40-man roster and Diamond is not, but with two openings on the 40 at the moment, that's not a serious impediment to bringing Diamond back.) Presumably, then, those two will also be in the rotation.

That leaves one starting slot, and the Wings' roster includes lefties Logan Darnell and Brooks Raley, who have been starters for the bulk of their minor league travels.

Or ... we've heard a lot of chatter from the Twins broadcasters about the idea of returning Ryan Pressly to starting. I'm not particularly big on that notion; Pressly was nothing special as a starter in the Red Sox system and really only became a noteworthy prospect when he moved to the bullpen.

But even if the Twins aren't seriously thinking about Pressly as a big league starter, they may well figure that he has a better chance of helping the big league team in the future than either of the lefties (I think that's the case), and therefore they should funnel the innings in Pressly's direction.

The Red Wings appear to have a very deep staff, deep enough to make me wonder what they would have done had Andrew Albers not chosen to play in Korea. Of course, had Albers remained in the organization, they might not have claimed Raley on waivers just before camp opened.

Notes, quotes and comment

Nick Blackburn's
ERA since signing his
four-year contract:
5.56.

Catching up on a baseball weekend:

Outrighted: The Twins on Monday outrighted both Nick Blackburn and Tsuyoshi Nishioka to Rochester.

This move takes both men off the 40-man roster. At this point, no corresponding 25-man roster move for Blackburn has been announced, although I suspect Liam Hendriks is the likely call-up; he could make the start on Wednesday that Blackburn had been scheduled for.

Nishioka was already in the minors on option; Blackburn had been optioned out earlier this summer. So the purpose in outrighting them was to take them off the 40 -- which serves two purposes.

First, it makes it possible to return (if and when healthy and ready) P.J. Walters and/or Carl Pavano from the 60-day DL, or to call up a minor leaguer not now on the 40.

Second, it signals that neither is in the plans for at least the remainder of 2012.

For 2013? Well, Blackburn and Nishioka are owed a total of some $8.5 million next year, or (easy math here) about 8.5 percent of the current payroll budget. That's a lot to walk away from. This move signals that it just might happen.

Curdled Melk: The Melky Cabrera suspension has turned into something more than our standard athletic-corruption story.

Turns out the surprise star and his cronies set up a fake website peddling a non-existent product in a failed attempt to establish that he had tested positive inadvertently.

Now federal investigators are involved. This one isn't going away anytime soon.

Affiliation preserved: The Twins and the Rochester Red Wings extended their working agreement for two years.

Keeping their Triple-A affiliation with the Wings was an under-the-radar priority for the organization this year. Mission accomplished.

With top affiliates Rochester and New Britain retained, the only expiring minor league affiliation left for the Twins is with low-A Beloit. Beloit is said to have the worst facilities in the Midwest League, and I don't think the Twins are adverse to shifting locales in this case.

Back in the cellar again: On Aug. 8, the Twins were in position to pull into a tie for third place in the AL Central. All they had to to was beat Cleveland.

They lost. And they've kept on losing -- they've dropped nine of 10 starting with that game. In those 10 games, the Twins have scored 33 runs and allowed 58.

Cleveland has been passed in the standings, but by Kansas City.

Day-to-day to the power of infinity: Denard Span last played Aug. 12, when he injured his collarbone/shoulder in an outfield tumble.

As of Sunday, he was still unable to take batting practice, so a return to action is nowhere in sight. Yet the Twins have not seen fit to put him on the disabled list. Assistant GM Rob Antony's rationale for this doesn't satisfy me.