The non-roster invitees

The Twins on Friday named 16 non-roster invitees to spring training:

#MNTwins announce 16 players on minor league contracts have been invited to major league spring training camp. pic.twitter.com/OGBRJYrIYw

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) January 6, 2017

This is almost certainly not the final list. These 16, plus the 40 on the roster, would make 56 bodies in camp, and they generally have more than 60.

For one thing, there are only two catchers on this list (Eddie Rodriguez and Dan Rohlfing), plus three on the 40 (Jason Castro, John Ryan Murphy and Mitch Garver). They will want more than five catchers to handle all the bullpen sessions in the early days of camp.  I figure they'll sign at least one, maybe two, catchers off the minor league free agent list before camp starts.

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of NRIs: minor-league free agents who are promised a camp invite but are viewed as organizational depth, and in-house players who aren't on the 40 but are of interest anyway. The second group is, to me, the more interesting.

That group this year is

• RHP Jake Reed
• RHP Aaron Slegers
• RHP Alex Wimmers
• LHS Stephen Gonsalves
• IF Niko Goodrum
• IF Nick Gordon

Wimmers ended 2016 on the active roster and was outrighted but remained with the organization. He, Slegers and Goodrum all went through the Rule 5 draft unclaimed. Reed, I think, was eligible for Rule 5 also but didn't get picked. Gordon and Gonsalves are two of the organization's top prospects but didn't need to be protected this winter.

The invitation to Goodrum interests me, partly because a few years ago I thought he was the most likely shortstop candidate in the system at the time. And almost immediately after that the Twins started playing him all over the infield and using Jorge Polanco heavily at shortstop.

Today there's no clear favorite to be the regular shortstop in 2017. The Twins had three different players serve as the "regular" at the position at different times last year, and two of them -- Eduardo Escobar and Polanco -- remain. But Polanco is a poor defensive shortstop, and there remains a reluctance to commit to Escobar.

I don't think either NRI infielder, Goodrum or Gordon, is likely to emerge with the job, or even a roster spot. But they will be in camp, and there is an open job -- and a significant one at that.

All those camp invites

The Twins on Thursday announced that 23 non-roster players had been invited to major league camp.

Prominent on the list: Prime prospects Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and Alex Meyer.

Prominently not included: Eddie Rosario, who was in camp last February as he prepared to play for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic. Rosario, of course, is facing a 50-game suspension for recreational drug use. I'm confident that, had he stayed clean, Rosario would also have an invite.

Not that he would be likely to break camp on the 25-man roster. Nor are Buxton, Sano or Meyer. They'll be there to get a taste of the big league side and to be seen more closely by the major league staff. But we should expect all three to open the season in the minors: Buxton most likely at Double A, Sano and Meyer probably at Triple A. They're close.

Jason Kubel and Jason Bartlett are two familiar names on the list. The trade of Ryan Doumit opens a slot for Kubel to take, but he may have to show that his awful 2013 was a fluke. Bartlett, who didn't play anywhere last year and fell off sharply the previous two years, is a longer shot to make the roster.

And there are a handful of players who saw some time on the major league roster last year: Outfielders Darin Mastroianni and Wilkin Ramirez and infielder Doug Bernier. 

There's the usual block of catchers, invited largely because somebody has to be on the other end of dozens of bullpen sessions. The Twins have four catchers on the 40 (Eric Fryer, Chris Herrmann, Josmil Pinto and Kurt Suzuki), so there'll be eight catchers around for the opening weeks. Stuart Turner, one of the invitees, was the team's third-round pick last June.

More spring training anticipation

I posted Tuesday about my upcoming spring training vacation. Lo and behold, the tickets for two of the games arrived in the mail that same day. Beautiful.

Kyle Gibson starred at Missouri and fell
to the Twins in the 2009 draft because
of a stress fracture in his forearm.

Also Tuesday: the news of the 19 "invitations" to the Twins major league camp issues to players not on the 40-man roster. As always, the list is heavy with catchers -- there are 20 pitchers on the 40-man roster right now, even Carl Pavano yet to be officially signed, and somebody's got to be on the receiving end of all those throws.

The headline news on the list is pitcher Kyle Gibson, generally regarded as the organization's top prospect. Joe Christensen tweeted that Gibson is "knocking on the door" for a rotation spot, but it's going to take multiple injuries for him to make the roster. Assuming Pavano is re-signed (as all indications suggest), the Twins will have six established starters in camp plus a handful of guys with major league experience. Gibson's realistic goal is to make Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson remember him come July.

The non-headline news: No Toby Gardenhire. The manager's son has been a non-roster invitee the past two seasons as a deep reserve catcher. But the idea that he has established himself as a catching option is belied by his meager playing time behind the dish in the minors: One game in 2009, two games in 2010.

He's what is known as an "organization player" -- kept around to meet roster requirements but not a real prospect. It's possible that he's been cut loose, but he's more likely going to be a bench guy at Double A or Triple A.

Thinking spring

As I write this, it's double-digits below zero.  So let's think spring.

The Twins on Friday announced their non-roster invites — 14 players not on the 40-man roster who will be in the major league camp. Only one, former Tigers pitcher Mike Maroth, is from outside the organization. He hasn't been in the majors since 2007.

Frequently teams will sign a fringe veteran to a minor-league deal with a major league invite and every expectation of putting him on the 25-man roster — a way to avoid cutting a player from the 40-man roster before camp. There's none of that here; I don't expect Maroth to make the 25-man roster. 

Nobody in this crowd is likely to contend for a roster spot, although a couple of them might get called up during the season.

The one with the best prospects of that: relief pitcher Anthony Slama, outfielder Rene Tosoni and relief pitcher Jose Lugo, who probably isn't as good as Slama but has the advantage of being left-handed. I can see him being a LOOGY candidate at some point.

The one I'd be most interested in seeing were I to go to Fort Myers is Ben Revere.  He's not going to see Target Field in 2010 short of utter calamity, but I suspect Ron Gardenhire and company are very curious to see him play. 

Three of the invitees are catchers, who will be there because there will be about two dozen pitchers in camp and somebody's got to do the squatting. 

A solid take on the invitees can be found at sethspeaks.net.