Allow me to introduce myself ...

A bunch of the guys the Twins cast off leading up to the trade deadline have started showing up in box scores. How they made their first impressions:

Brian Dozier homered, doubled and singled Wednesday in his Dodger debut. Three-for-4 with seven total bases is a pretty good way to boot up.

Zach Duke didn't allow a homer in 37.1 innings with the Twins. He made his first appearance with Seattle on Tuesday and gave up a homer to Josh Reddick. A LOOGY throwing a gopher ball to a left-handed hitter ... ouch.

Lance Lynn was almost unrecognizable in his Yankees debut; the Yankees don't allow beards, and Lynn has had one throughout his major league career. New look, good results: 4.1 scoreless innings of relief on Thursday against Baltimore. Sonny Gray had already put the Yankees well behind, and Lynn did allow an inherited runner to score, but the overall impression was strong enough that there is speculation in Yankeeland that Lynn will move into the starting rotation.

Ryan Pressly, like Duke, gave up a homer in his first outing with his new team -- in this case, Houston. I had the glimmer of a notion that the Astros might try him as closer, but the controversial trade for Roberto Osuna, who faces domestic violence charges in Toronto, probably closes that door.

Eduardo Escobar is doing Eduardo Escobar stuff for the Diamondbacks. He doubled (of course) in his debut against the Padres and had two hits in each of his first two games with Arizona. It sounds, by the way, like Jake Lamb, nominally Arizona's regular third baseman, might be done for the season with the injury that helped prompt the Snakes to deal for Escobar.

Waving the white flag

The only position
Eduardo Escobar didn't
play for the Twins
was first base.

Eduardo Escobar is gone, to the Arizona Diamondbacks for three players in A ball.

Ryan Pressly is gone, to the Houston Astros for two guys who have at least reached Double A.

Also gone is any pretense that the Twins still harbor playoff ambitions.

Escobar was on his way to his new team before the Twins took the field in Boston Friday evening. His departure saddens me, as I suspect it does every other Twins fan. Escobar is a fun player, eminently likable, and far better than any of us imagined he would be when the Twins got him from the Chicago White Sox in 2011.

Escobar filled the gap at third base and in the middle of the lineup opened by Miguel Sano's failures earlier this season. Now Sano, his minor league reboot apparently complete, gets a fresh shot at the job. It seems odd to say this about a guy who has long been seen as the future of the franchise, but I am not enthused about that. I have come to regard Escobar as a more reliable and productive player than Sano.

Ryan Pressly
was the Twins' best
Rule 5 selection
since Johan Santana.

But ... Escobar is a free agent to be, the Twins picked up three lottery tickets for him, and it's wise to  to get a handle on what Sano 2.0 is like. I want to hope that the Twins re-sign Escobar this winter, but that probably would require them to pull the plug on Sano, and I believe they still have too much invested in Sano.

As for Pressly: There are sabermetric analyses that regard him as one of the better relievers in the game. That's not been backed up by the results.

I'm eager to see how Houston uses Pressly. Their late-inning relief situation has been pretty ugly all year; closer Ken Giles's postseason woes carried over to this year, and the Astros sent him to the minors a bit more than two weeks ago. The Astros have had no shortage of pitching imports revise their approach and step up their game -- Charlie Morton, Justin Verlander, Garret Cole -- after arriving in Houston. Maybe the Astros see something they can tweak with Pressly.

As for the return for the two ... well, I'll grapple with that in another post on another day. Right now, the fan in me is grieving too much for the amateur GM to emerge. On the face of it, the Twins appear to have gotten better prospects for Pressly than they did for Escobar, because Pressly is still under team control in 2019.

On the bullpen

It would be inaccurate to blame the Twins loss Thursday on the bullpen. The lineup contributed zero runs to the cause until the ninth inning against one of Boston's lower leverage pitchers.

But the bullpen -- specifically Ryan Pressly and Matt Belisle -- did turn a close game into a rout, and there were big-picture choices involved that made that outcome more likely than not.

Choice One: The heavy use of Pressly.

Thursday was the 71st game the Twins have played this year. It was the 37th appearance for Pressly, who has now appeared in 52.1 percent of the Twins games. At that usage rate, he would pitch in 84 games. This would not be a record -- 1970s relief legend Mike Marshall pitched had three seasons, with three different clubs, of at least 90 appearances (the last being the Twins in 1979).

But using Pressly at the frequency of Iron Mike is beginning to backfire. He has surrendered multiple runs in four of his last six outings, and his ERA, which entered the month at 2.22, is now at 4.15.

Of course, somebody has to pitch. And the Twins have four other relievers (Zach Duke, Trevor Hildenberger, Addison Reed and Taylor Rodgers) with at least 30 appearances apiece, and Hildenberger, has pitched more innings than Pressly.

Which brings us to the second choice.

Choice Two: The presence of Matt Belisle on the roster.

The Twins have eight relievers on their roster -- the above mentioned five hard-worked middle/setup men, closer Fernando Rodney, Matt Magill and Belisle.

Magill has pitched well (1.46 ERA after Thursday's mopup inning), but Paul Molitor seems reluctant to use him in game situations.

And Belisle -- well, we saw him quite a bit last season, and what we saw then remains true now. He's not a guy you can use with frequency, and he's prone to outings that just get away from him. One of them was Thursday: one inning, four hits, three runs.

Between the Twins and Cleveland, Belisle has made 12 major league appearances this season. He wasn't charged with a run in eight of them, and he allowed just one run in another. But he's now had three multiple-run outings, and they have ballooned his ERA to 5.93. (He showed a similar tendency in Triple A after Cleveland outrighted him earlier in the season.)

The Twins apparently love Belisle as a mentor, but the first job is getting outs. If the Twins are going to carry that extra reliever, it has to be somebody who can lighten the burden on guys like Pressly and Reed, who are showing signs of fatigue. That's not Belisle.

Feeding the gopher

Ibid, Monday's post:

In my best glass-half-empty mode, I will note here that Ryan Pressly and Addison Reed have become disturbingly gopher-ball prone. ... Both have histories of allowing long balls, so it's not as if this is unexpected.

And what happened Friday night? Pressly pitched the seventh, and gave up a two-run homer to turn a 2-1 lead into a 3-2 deficit. Reed pitched the eighth and gave up a solo shot.

Ugh.

That we can see this coming just adds to the irritation when it happens.

Contemplating Ryan Pressly

Ryan Pressly's
strikeout rate soared
last season, but so did
his homers allowed.

I have been at times -- most of last season, this year's spring training -- eager to see Ryan Pressly's roster spot go to somebody else. What I've seen is velocity with sometimes shaky command that proves all too hittable.

The Twins have been more patient. And so far this young season, that patience is being rewarded.

On Tuesday, Pressly, now 29 and a veteran, made his fifth appearance. He has now worked 5.1 innings, allowing just six baserunners and striking out six, with no runs allowed.

I've said repeatedly that even after this offseason makeover the Minnesota bullpen was shy a reliable power arm. Pressly has been that for the first couple of weeks.

Pressly's strikeout rate has risen rather steadily from his 2013 rookie season, when he was a Rule 5 pick -- 4.4 K/9 in 2014, 7.2 in 2015, 8.0 in 2016, 9.0 last year. He's at 10.1 so far in 2018, and that will certainly play.

What wrecked 2017 for him was allowing 10 homers in 61.1 innings. He's kept the ball in the park so far in 2018. He got to pitch with a narrow lead for the first time Tuesday; it probably won't be the last.

Notes, quotes and comment

Another big inning fueled by a poor defensive play involving a comebacker to the mound. On Thursday in Boston it was a mental mistake by Kyle Gibson; on Friday it was a poor throw by Ervin Santana.

I say it a lot, but it's true: This pitching staff isn't good enough to bail out the fielders. That's true even when the fielding miscues come from the pitchers themselves.

---

Roster stuff: Alan Busenitz got eight outs on 35 pitches Friday night to mop up behind Santana. He also committed an error of his own that led to an unearned run, but he knocked his ERA down to 2.08. (The underlying numbers are considerably less impressive.)

His reward was to be optioned back out to Rochester, with Ryan Pressly and his 8.18 major league ERA recalled. Pressly has a 0.90 ERA in Rochester with 15 strikeouts in 10 innings (and five walks), so it's not like it's an unwarranted return.

The Twins have been doing this for much of the year. They have a handful of relievers who are staying -- the big three of Brandon Kintzler, Taylor Rogers and Tyler Duffey, the optionless veterans Matt Belisle and Craig Breslow -- and everybody else is subject to the Rochester shuttle. Busenitz isn't going to be available for a few days, the Twins have a double header today in Kansas City, the Twins have a fresh arm.

Pressly and Busenitz are essentially the same type of pitcher: Good velocity, less good command. On Friday, Busenitz had the bullpen's highest velocity; today that designation belongs to Pressly.

---

Both Alex Wimmers and Mason Melotakis cleared waivers and remain in the Minnesota organization. The move a week ago to clear Melotakis off the 40-man roster raised some eyebrows in the Twins internets, but we now know that nobody else thought the lefty was worth a 40-man roster spot.

---

One Twins prospect was selected for the Futures Game this year. middle infielder Nick Gordon. whose offensive game has stepped up in all areas this season. (Moving up from Hammond Stadium probably helped.)

Notably absent is outfielder Zach Granite, who is hitting about .370 in Triple A, albeit with few walks and minimal power.

The Futures Game is intended to showcase top talent regardless of level. Granite is obviously having a fine season despite the shortcomings in his game, but he doesn't truly fit the idea of the Futures Game.

Draft, Day three: And done

I wondered in the Wednesday post if the Twins had one more overslot draft pick in their plan. Miek Berardino of the Pioneer Press answered that quickly:

Suggestion from #mntwins scouting director Sean Johnson after Day 2 was board had been picked over. Day 3 mostly org guys. Money's spent.

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) June 14, 2017

"Org guys" being baseball lingo for "players signed so the real prospects have enough teammates to make up a team."

The next step is crucial: Getting all 11 of the players drafted in the first 10 rounds signed to the expected deals. It appears that at least six of the selections are expected to take underslot deals, but the Twins can't afford to have somebody renege on that, a la Kyle Cody. The Twins picked Cody in the second round in 2015, and he opted to return to the University of Kentucky for his senior season instead.

Losing out on Cody wasn't a disaster. Cody wound up going in the sixth round last year, so he probably cost himself a lot of money, and his minor league numbers in the Rangers system are underwhelming. Plus the Twins got the 74th pick in the 2016 draft (prep outfielder Akil Baddoo) to compensate. (Baddoo is apparently waiting for the Appy League season to begin.)

But failing to sign Cody meant the Twins had the slot value of that pick deleted from their draft pool. That was relatively unimportant under Terry Ryan, because the Twins weren't trying to game the bonus pool system. This year they are. So failing to sign a high pick, even one they expect to sign under slot, will damage their entire draft.

---

The Twins had 41 picks in total and used 21 of them on pitchers., including 15 on the final day. Thirty-one of their picks were collegians. They won't sign a lot of them, of course. Failure to sign picks after Round 10 don't count against the pool.

---

Some minor league roster stuff to update: The Twins retained Drew Rucinski and Nick Tepesch, the two right-handers they recently designated for assignment. But they released Kevin Chapman, the lefty reliever they got from Atlanta for Danny Santana.

And amid all the draft stuff I hadn't noted that Ryan Pressly is back on the major league team, with Alex Wimmers shipped back to Rochester. Dick-n-Bert see Pressly as key to this bullpen, and he does have more of a power reliever's profile than anybody else out there, but really: even last year, his supposed breakout season, he wasn't that good.

The Twins do need a reliable righty to pair with Taylor Rogers in late innings to bridge between the starter/Tyler Duffey and closer Brandon Kintzler. I'm far from convinced Pressly is, or ever was, or will be, that reliable righty.

Contemplating Ryan Pressly

There were few givens for the Twins bullpen coming into spring training. Ryan Pressly was one.

He threw hard, he had an outstanding curve, he had elevated his strikeouts per nine innings sharply and lowered his walk rate, he had climbed the bullpen heirarchy to become Paul Molitor's second most trusted reliever.

Today Pressly's dragging his 9.50 ERA back to Triple A.

Parker Hageman of Twins Daily on Thursday posted this analysis of Pressly's failure. Quick summary: Too many fastballs early in counts and when behind, not enough use of his best pitch, the curveball.

I noted in my previous post that there are positive markers in Pressly's stat line. Specifically, this year he has struck out 11.5 men per nine innings, 3.5 above his previous career high. But his walk rate is also higher, and nobody's going to succeed throwing 2.5 homers every nine innings.

I have referred often to what I call "the Greg McMichael rule" of pitching: If you get outs, they'll find a role for you. Pressly arguably found himself in a role -- late inning shutdown reliever -- that he wasn't ready for. He entered this season with a 3.55 career ERA and a 3.70 FIP. His 2016 season, his "breakthrough" year, was a 3.70 ERA and 3.74 FIP.

Those are not the results one sees from eighth-inning guys in quality bullpens. They are middle-relief numbers, if that. Pressly acceded to the eighth-inning role last year because nobody else was doing any better, not because he had truly earned it.

And now he has to re-earn a lesser role.

A reliever with upside

Another game against the Houston Astros, another bullpen meltdown, and another round of musical chairs on the roster.

But there's a subtle difference in the moves this time.

Gone are Ryan Pressly (optioned) and Jason Wheeler (designated for assignment). Pressly's struggles -- he carries a 9.50 ERA to Rochester -- probably deserve a deeper examination than I care to attempt this morning. He was expected to be a key piece of the bullpen this year, and he undoubtably failed, and yet there are some markers in his 2017 stats that are actually positive.

Randy Rosario has
a 2.66 ERA in
Double A Chattanooga
this season.

As for Wheeler -- I doubt anybody's going to claim him on waivers. But he's been outrighted before, and as I understand the rules, he'll have the right to take free agency rather than report to Rochester if he clears waivers. I doubt the Twins are worried about losing him.

Added to the battered bullpen corps are Alex Wimmers and Randy Rosario. Wimmers we saw last year;  he is, like Drew Rucinski and Matt Belisle and Buddy Boshers and Wheeler and seemingly everybody the Twins have cycled through their bullpen this season, a replacement level arm best suited to mop-up duties. He's not a solution.

Randy Rosario (no relation to outfielder Eddie Rosario)  is different. R. Rosario is -- finally --  one of the higher octane arms the Twins have been hoarding in their farm system. Left-handed, turned 23 about two weeks ago, survivor of Tommy John surgery. I saw him pitch in Cedar Rapids in 2015 and posted this report. The Twins moved him to the bullpen late last summer after trying to develop him as a started.

He has all of 14 games above A ball on his resume, and I presume that the Twins were reluctant to expose him to the majors with so little experience. But unlike Wimmers -- or Rucinski and the rest of the recycles -- there's an obvious out pitch in Rosario, there's some velocity, there's the makings of swing-and-miss stuff.

I won't guarantee it will work any better with Rosario than with the others, but it might. And at least it's something different. I would have expected Mason Melotakis over Rosario on the basis of experience, but I'm not complaining.

Contemplating Ryan Pressly

Former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was known for his verbal tics -- stock phrases that he used so frequently that they essentially became meaningless, at least to a lot of fans. "Get after it." "Hustle their tails off." "The ball comes out of his hand real good."

One of the underrated ones was "spin it." As in, "He can spin it," meaning throw a quality breaking ball. I remember a Gardenhire monologue after a lefty specialist named Randy Flores was brought in and threw fast balls to a left-handed hitter, who got a crucial hit. Gardenhire's rant was to the effect that if he wanted fast balls thrown to that guy, he'd have left the righty in, and Flores needed to "spin it." (As I recall, Flores never got the ball again in a game situtation.)

Well ... with the advent of Statcast, we now have objective data on pitch spin. As a general rule, the higher the spin rate, the better -- spin creates friction with the air and thus makes the pitch move, and more friction means more movement.

And Ryan Pressly has impressive spin rates. Rhett Bollinger of MLB,com posted this piece earlier this week noting that Pressly's average spin rate ranks eighth among MLB pitchers (he didn't say what the minimum innings or pitches for that ranking would be).

 

That suggests that Pressly has the talent to be a successful reliever. So far, he hasn't really had the results -- a 3.70 ERA isn't what you expect from a short man with dominating stuff. 

Bollinger says Pressly expects to increase the use of his slider this year, probably by decreasing his curve. It may make sense for him to pick one breaking ball and stick with it; few pitchers throw both the curve and the slider with proficency. Pressly himself cites command glitches as a problem, and I suspect Neil Allen, the pitching coach, would agree. 

Basic point: Pressly isn't an outstanding reliever now. But he has the stuff to be one. And this is a bullpen that certainly has room for somebody to emerge.

A bullpen overview

The Twins caravan swung through Mankato on Monday night. Theoretically I could have gone -- Monday is one of my nights off -- but it wasn't really on my radar screen to begin with, and when I tried to walk the dog around 5 p.m. and found the driveway and sidewalk ice-coated from the drizzle, all notion of leaving the house was abandoned.

But about 300 people did show up, including the Free Press' free-lancer Denny Weller, who produced this report.

The players on this leg of the annual promotional journey were relievers Brandon Kintzler and Ryan Pressly, who emerged during the sorry 2016 season as the bullpen arms Paul Molitor most trusted -- which is not to say that they were truly good. Each was, as it turned out, arbitration eligible this year, and each got a nice raise for their veteranness.

We don't know when or to what level Glen Perkins will return from his shoulder surgery. I'm a Perkins fan. as evidenced by my repeated sponsorship of his Baseball Reference page, but I'm not optimistic about his future. Shoulder surgeries are inherently career-threatening, and on the range of outcomes, a return as the 97-mph flamethrower he once was is probably the least likely.

If Perkins is back, that's great and wonderful. But the Twins should wait to see it before they count on him.

And what does a non-Perkins bullpen look like? Presuming Trevor May is in the rotation, this would be a likely outline of six pitchers and roles, at least to open:

Closer: Kintzler
Setup 1: Pressly
Setup 2/LOOGY 1: Taylor Rogers
MR 1: J.T. Chargois
LOOGY 2: Ryan O'Rourke
Long man: Michael Tonkin

I'm not impressed, and you shouldn't be either.

To be sure, there are plenty of contenders for the last four roles, and I doubt that these precise six will all go north for the opener. I hope there will be a genuine long man, not Tonkin's masquarade. But Kintzler and Pressly, with their squatter's rights, will go to Fort Myers penciled into the top two slots. (It's also quite possible tha the Twins will open with a 12-man staff, not the 11 this implies, but they aren't winning or losing games on their 12th pitcher, or shouldn't be.)

Thoughts from the home opener

Trevor Plouffe late in the game.
The fans aren't happy with 0-7; nor
are the players.

Oh and seven is no way to open a season, but that's where the Twins are,

I said during my belated KMSU appearance, recorded Monday morning because I was to be on the road at air time, that I felt better about this team's 0-6 coming into the home opener than I did about 2015's 1-5 because in 2015 the Twins were being consistently blown out in those initial games. This year only one game has been one-sided.

And that was the case again on a chilly Monday afternoon at Target Field. The Twins lost 4-1; last year's score for the home opener was 12-3. Progress, folks!

At some point you are what your record says you are. I don't believe that's the case for the Twins yet.

Other thoughts:

* Kyle Gibson wasn't particularly sharp, but he allowed just one earned run in his 5.2 innings. (The two-run fourth opened with Eduardo Escobar bouncing a routine throw past Joe Mauer for an error, and the runs scored with two outs.) With 40-degree temperatures and 100-plus pitches, I was a little surprised Gibson got as far as he did.

* I was even more surprised that Ryan Pressly went 2.1 innings. I suggested in that KMSU appearance that he might be in line to move up the bullpen ladder a notch. He didn't hurt his cause Monday. although the actual use suggests more of a long-man role than a short relief one. One of the two baserunners beat out, with the help of replay, a soft grounder to second that Brian Dozier had some trouble getting a grip on to throw.

*The Twins only struck out seven times, which is their new season low. And Eddie Rosario actually walked, which astounded me in the left-field seats.

* Miguel Sano didn't look terrible from my vantage point, which wasn't good for evaluating the right fielder.He did make an odd-looking throw to third base with a skipping motion that is, I'm sure, a remnant from his infield days. I will wager that Butch Davis, the coach responsible for the outfielders, either talked to him about that technique or will.

* My vantage point was pretty good for evaluating the left fielders. Melky Cabrera did not enjoy the Target Field sun, but he made two catches that he appeared about to misplay anyway. Meanwhile, Rosario let another ball down the left-field line elude him, which allowed a run to score in the top of the ninth off Trevor May. That's at least two such balls this year for Rosario,

* There were boos at the end of the game for 0-7; there were boos also when third base coach Gene Glynn held up Joe Mauer at third base on a short fly to center. I would have held Mauer in that situation too. No sense in risking the out for a run that still leaves you behind.

The roster shuffle: Hicks, Thompson, O'Roarke, Pressly, Robinson

The Twins moved some bodies around the past few days while I was writing about other stuff. Assuming everything is settled in, they've cut the staff back to 12 pitchers and re-inserted a genuine centerfielder into the lineup. Let's review:

Reserve outfielder Shane Robinson was absent a few days on family emergency leave, his second such absence of the season. I don't think I've described his situation before, but this Derek Wetmore piece from last month does a pretty good job of explaining why Robinson comes and goes.

Robinson's brief departure opened the door for Aaron Hicks to return from his rehab assignment. Hicks not only made a spectacular catch Monday night, he homered in consecutive games (both from the right side). Power is something that's been missing from his game the past year-plus.

Robinson's return coincided with Ryan Pressly's trip to the disabled list. The right-handed reliever felt something give in the back of his shoulder Saturday. He has had a quietly good stat line (2.93 ERA with the bullpen's second-highest strikeout rate) despite occasional control hiccups.

The upshot: The Twins have replaced Pressly, the bullpen's No. 3 righty, with Hicks.

The other shuffled was LOOGY for LOOGY: Aaron Thompson down, Ryan O'Roarke up.

Ryan O'Roarke has
a career ERA of
4.15 in the minor
leaguers.

I vaguely remember seeing O'Roarke in Beloit in 2012, and I mentioned him in passing in the blog, but I can't recall any specifics. He was one of seven lefties on the Snappers roster when I saw them (that was their final season affiliated with the Twins), and he didn't hold any special interest for me. The idea that he'd be in the big league bullpen before fellow southpaw Corey Williams, a recent third-round pick, would have been ludicrous. But here he is, and Williams is in the process of recovering from Tommy John surgery.

There's not a lot in O'Roarke's minor-league numbers to excite you. He's been used in an emphatic one-out role for the past year and a half in Double A and Triple A. This season, for example: 22 appearances but just 15 innings, with an ERA of 5.40. He's had excellent strikeout rates in that role, but he pretty clearly has some trouble with right-handed hitters.

Which is what did in Thompson, that and, arguably, overuse in the first two months. He leaves leading the American League in appearances but with an ERA of 5.01, this despite still having an impressive slash line against left-handed hitters (.189/.262/.264). The underlying point to Thompson's struggles: Even a left-handed specialist winds up facing more right-handed hitters than left-handed ones, and they have to have something to combat them with.

That will be the challenge for O'Roarke. It does seem noteworthy, however, that he got the call instead of Caleb Theilbar, who spent much of the previous two seasons sharing LOOGY duties with Brian Duensing.

The same OLD story on the roster

Michael Tonkin
was pretty quickly
eliminated from the
bullpen discussion.

I commented the other day, in connection with the removal of Lester Oliveros and Stephen Pryor from the Twins 40-man roster, that the clock is ticking for them.

It is, as well, for Ryan Pressly and Michael Tonkin, two other relievers who didn't make the 25-man roster while the 30-something likes of Tim Stauffer and Blaine Boyer did.

One of my core thoughts about this season is that the Twins need to stop looking for reasons not to use the kids and start looking for reasons to use them.

Tonkin is 25, his major league ERA (admittedly in just 30-plus innings) is 3.26 with a walk/strikeout ratio of 9/26, and his Triple A numbers last year were strong. Pressly is 26, with a major league ERA of 3.60 in 105 innings, and he too had a good year in Triple A.

But it's back to the bushes for them while the old guys with no upside have jobs. I don't get it. I really don't.

Aaron Gleeman has pointed out that there are only four players on the likely 25-man roster age 25 or younger: Kennys Vargas, Danny Santana, J.R. Graham and Oswaldo Arcia. Keep this in mind as you hear Bert Blyleven tell you what a young team this is: It isn't young. It certainly isn't as young as it ought to be, considering the miserable record of the past four seasons and the highly touted state of the farm system.

It's quite possible that neither Pressly nor Tonkin is destined to be a standout reliever. I'm not as high on either of them as I am on the Nick Burdi-J.T. Chargois-Jake Reed-Zach Jones quartet of fireballers. None of those four got major league camp invites; none has cracked Double A yet, two are coming off injuries, two only turned pro last June. They're not high enough on the Twins totem pole.

In my more cynical moments, I assume that Pressly and Tonkin are being kept around to be a reason not to try one of the younger guys, just as Stauffer and Boyer are reasons not to use Pressly and Tonkin.

Any totem pole that puts Tim Stauffer above Michael Tonkin, much less Nick Burdi, needs to be torn down.

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.

Eye on 2014: What about Ryan Pressly?

Ryan Pressly made
it through his Rule 5
season, so the Twins
are free to send him
to the minors next year.

The Twins got Ryan Pressly in the Rule 5 draft, which meant he had to be carried on the active roster all season or offered back to the Boston Red Sox. That wasn't much of a problem; he had a very strong first half and, even with his second half fade, it was pretty obvious that he was worth keeping.

He ended 2013 with a 3-3, 3.87 record in 76.2 innings, all in relief. He ranked fourth in the American League in relief innings (teammate Anthony Swarzak was first). 

Even as Pressly's ERA ballooned in the second half (3.09 before the All-Star break, 4.91 after), it seemed that every time he entered a game Bert Blyleven talked on TV about shifting him to a starter's role in future seasons.

The Twins have an obvious need for starting pitchers, but it is less than obvious that Pressly is a good candidate for the role

Three points:

• Boston exposed him to the Rule 5 draft for a reason. Pressly struggled at every level in the Red Sox system until they moved him to a relief role. It was the shift to the bullpen that made him worth taking in Rule 5.
• Pressly's season deteriorated as his innings mounted. That doesn't suggest that a starter's heavier workload is a good fit.
• Even with the bullpen boost -- pitchers throw with greater velocity when working in relief's shorter stints -- Pressly still had a below average strikeout rate. He fanned 5.8 men per nine innings, almost two less than the AL average. 

Blyleven's fixation on the idea of Pressly as a starter probably wasn't his; he was doubtless getting this notion fed to him by the Twins. So I wouldn't be surprised if the Twins chose to send him to Triple A with the intent of making him a starter.

I would be surprised if it worked. The available evidence says Pressly belongs in the bullpen. 

Ryan Pressly and bullpen roles

Jared Burton picked up the save Thursday night.

The Twins are now carrying 13 pitchers, eight relievers, on their 25-man roster, and unless the starting rotation suddenly discovers how to pitch seven innings consistently, that's probably going to be the rule the rest of the season.

We can divide the eight into two four-man groups, the guys who pitch in game situations and the guys who are there to eat innings. Then we can further break the groups down into more specific roles.

Group A has Glen Perkins, Jared Burton, Casey Fien and Brian Duensing.

Closer Perkins and set-up man Burton are reserved for the late innings. They generally don't pitch when the Twins are behind — the exceptions coming when the Twins have so seldom held a late lead that they haven't had any work for a while — and generally start innings rather than come in with men on base.

Duensing and Fien are the inherited runner specialists. Fien has inherited 22 runners in his team-leading 26 appearances; only three have scored. Duensing has inherited 17 runners with four scoring. (Burton, in contrast, has inherited three runners, with two scoring, and Perkins has inherited two runners, both of whom scored.)

Group B consists of Josh Roenicke, Anthony Swarzak, Ryan Pressly and Caleb Thielbar. These four have worked a lot of long relief and mop-up — too much of each, really, which is why there are now eight relief pitchers.

Roenicke has straddled the boundary between the two groups — he's been the alternative to Fien as the middle-innings get-out-of-a-jam rightie, but he's also been used as a long-relief alternative to Swarzak and Pressly.

Rookie Ryan Pressly
may be easing into a
more prominent role
in the Twins bullpen.

Alternatives were needed Thursday. Perkins had pitched three straight days, so manager Ron Gardenhire had shelved him for the day. Fien had pitched three out of four days, so he was also on the do-not-use list. That led to a juggling of roles, which did not go universally cleanly.

When P.J. Walters, who had a big lead, needed help in the seventh inning, it was Roenicke who got the call, not Fien. Roenicke struggled with his command. Both the inherited runners scored.

Duensing was called on to start the eighth inning, which is usually Burton's role, but he retired only one of the three hitters he faced. Pressly came in to get the last two outs (allowing the inherited runner to score). Burton had a no-drama ninth to wrap up the win.

Pressly is an increasingly intriguing bullpen option. As a rookie claimed in the Rule 5 draft last December, he has not been used often in high-leverage situations, but he gave Gardenhire two shutout innings in the 14-inning win Tuesday night and snuffed out the Brewers threat in the eighth Thursday.

He has, with the exception of Perkins, the highest velocity arm in the Minnesota bullpen. He's younger than either Fien or Roenicke. I rather expect Gardenhire to increase Pressly's role — first by supplanting Roenicke as the marginal seventh-inning jam rightie, then perhaps by challenging for Fien's role.

More bullpen depth is always a plus.

Contemplating Ryan Pressly

Ryan Pressly, working
most in long relief
and in mopup, has
walked eight and
struck out 11 so far.

The Twins take Rule 5 seriously. Over the years, they've probably mined more talent out of the leavings of rival farm systems than anybody. Johan Santana, Shane Mack, Scott Diamond, Gary Wayne  ... and now Ryan Pressly.

Pressly gave the Twins four innings of scoreless relief work Wednesday night and was credited with his first major league win. It came against the Red Sox — the team that drafted him, signed him, shifted him to the bullpen last summer and then left him off the 40-man roster in the fall. The Twins snagged Pressly in Rule 5, and he survived the numbers game in spring training, perhaps with help from some injuries.

Pressly's 1.72 ERA perhaps overstates his effectiveness so far; in 15.2 innings, the 24-year-old right-hander has allowed 15 hits and eight walks. Four of the seven runs he's been charged with are unearned.

He has been given few meaningful innings, and rightly so. Wednesday was an exception, and he got the call because Anthony Swarzak was used for three innings Monday and Josh Roenicke has been pitching with some frequency.

Mike Bernadino of the Pioneer Press has said a few times that there are people in the organization who would like to try returning Pressly to starting. That notion fits the farm system's interest in shifting power arms from the bullpen to the rotation.

But in Pressly's specific case, it should be noted that he scuffled as a starter in the Red Sox organization. He didn't emerge as a prospect until he was put in the bullpen. He has the kind of power arm that lends itself to an eventual late-inning role.

I would be wary of taking him out of his success zone — especially since the Twins have a fairly hefty stockpile of starting alternatives in the high minors. If they want or need to swap out one of the five current starters — and they might want to do that with Pedro Hernandez — Kyle Gibson, Sam Deduno, Cole De Vries and Alex Meyer would seem wiser alternatives.

Winter meetings, Day 4

Vance Worley had a 3.01 ERA in 2011 but 4.20 in 2012.
He had bone chips removed from his elbow in September.

And on the fourth day they acted.

On Thursday, after the Twins selected a relief candidate in the Rule 5 draft, they made a more significant move: Trading OF Ben Revere to Philadelphia for RHS Vance Worley and power-pitching prospect Trevor May, also a rightie.

Revere -- with his big smile, infectious personality and speed -- had quickly become popular with Twins fans, but this was a good trade for the Twins, even if it creates a bit of a gap in the middle of the outfield.

Worley emerged as a surprisingly good starter in 2011 for the Phillies when their super rotation (Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt and Joe Blanton) started having injury issues in the back end. Worley was markedly less effective last season, and had elbow surgery in September.

Does he meet the Diamond Standard? Well, he's not pitched 200 innings in any season, but he came fairly close in 2011 (50-plus in the minors, 130-plus in the NL, a handful of outs in the playoffs), but his career ERA in 277.2 innings is 3.50. Assuming the elbow's sound, he's a good bet.

Then there's May, a big-hoss (6-5) pitcher who has struck out 647 men in 525.1 minor league innings. The scouting reports I've seen cite not only a good fastball but good secondary pitches. He's regarded as a prime prospect -- Baseball America last spring ranked him No. 69 among all minor leaguers -- but he's got work to do.

He pitched in the Eastern League (Double A) last year and led the circuit in walks and home runs allowed -- an indication of problems with command and control. He's on the 40-man roster, so he'll be in spring training; conceivably he could win a rotation spot if he comes in to camp throwing strikes, but more likely he'll be sent to Rochester.

---

The Rule 5 addition is Ryan Pressly, a right-handed reliever out of the Boston organization. By definition, he's fringey -- hot prospects aren't exposed to Rule 5 -- but he appeared to raise his trajectory last summer when he was shifted to the bullpen in Double A, and he impressed the Twins during his stint in the Arizona Fall League.

He'll compete with the likes of Alex Burnett, Josh Roenicke, Tim Wood and Anthony Swarzak for a spot deep in the Minnesota bullpen. Most of that crop are use-or-lose -- either out of options or, in Pressly's case, a Rule 5 -- and it will be interesting to see how it shakes out in spring training.

Another interesting move, and one that may never be mentioned again, was the signing of Jason Lane, former major league outfielder, as a left-handed pitcher on a minor-league deal. He's 35. He's been pitching in independent ball and Triple A for four seasons.