Clearing room on the 40-man roster (updated)

Thomas Field's 2012 Topps card.

Last week, the Twins had 40 players on their roster. After a week of subtraction, they're now down to 37 36.

Wednesday: IF Thomas Field was lost on waivers to Anaheim
Thursday: CF Denard Span was traded to Washington; Alex Meyer, the pitcher they got back, isn't on the 40-man roster and probably won't be put on the 40 until he's put on the 25-man active roster.
Friday: RHP Deolis Guerra was outrighted to Rochester; RHP Lester Oliveros was nontendered.

The Span trade, of course, has gotten plenty of commentary, here and elsewhere. The other moves, not so much.

The Twins claimed Field on waivers from Colorado early in November. As I predicted when the Twins acquired him, the Twins tried to slip him through waivers themselves. On Wednesday we learned that Anaheim claimed him. So he's gone.

Deolis Guerra has
been in the Twins
organization since
2008, but is only 23.

The Twins probably picked Field up with the intent of making him the shortstop at Rochester. Now the organization has a bit of a hole to plug there. Last year the Red Wings used Brian Dozier or Pedro Florimon at short (Dozier to open and close the season, Florimon while Dozier was in Minnesota), with Tsuyoshi Nishioka at second base. Nishi won't be back, of course, and Dozier, Florimon and Eduardo Escobar are all in the mix for jobs at the big league level. I expect another infield addition in the Twins future.

Guerra, the last remaining piece from the Johan Santana trade, cleared waivers, which means nobody else wanted to give him a spot on their 40-man roster. He remains in the organization and will be in major league camp this spring. He was out of options anyway, so had he not cleared waivers now and didn't make the team the Twins would have had to waive him in the spring. Guerra had had a good start to his 2012 season and seemed likely to get a call-up, but tailed off and missed a good bit of time to injury.

Oliveros' nontender took me by surprise. Friday's deadline for making "qualifying offers" generally focuses on the arbitration-eligible players -- in the Twins case, Drew Butera, Jared Burton and Brian Duensing. All three were retained. Oliveros, a hard-thrower acquired in 2011's Delmon Young trade, will miss 2013 after having Tommy John surgery, and the Twins apparently decided it wasn't worth keeping him on the 40-man roster. (Update: The Twins have re-signed him to a minor league deal.)

All this frees up plenty of space for either free agent signings or activity in the Rule V draft. The word from Twins execs after the Span trade was that their focus at the winter meetings next week would be on talking to agents rather than trades, so making room was necessary.

A waiver wire Friday

Alexi Casilla never took command of a regular job
with the Twins despite plenty of opportunities.

The Minnesota Twins had a busy Friday on the waiver wire.

Going: INF Alexi Casilla
Coming: RHP Josh Roenicke, INF Thomas Field
Uncertain: RHP Sam Deduno

Waiver transactions are almost always fringe-of-the-roster moves, but there are a couple of familiar names involved in these moves.

Most prominent, of course, is Casilla, who was claimed by the Baltimore Orioles. It was widely assumed last summer that the Twins would nontender Casilla, who never took control of a regular job despite a multitude of opportunities. It wouldn't surprise me if the O's wind up nontendering him themselves; he figures to get more through arbitration than a reserve infielder ought to get.

The Twins also outrighted Deduno, who spent most of the second half in the starting rotation. He can opt for free agency, but the early word was that he and his agent were leaning toward accepting a minor-league contract with Minnesota, as P.J. Walters did a few days after he was outrighted. I can't see that he can expect a major-league contract from anybody else.

Sam Deduno has a
decision to make: Stay
with the Twins on a
minor-league deal,
or try to land a job
elsewhere?

The additions both come from Colorado, one of the few teams with a worse 2012 record than the Twins.

Roenicke is a 30-year-old middle reliever who had a 3.25 ERA in 88.2 innings for the Rockies. That's good in any environment, but particularly in Coors Field. He also had 54 strikeouts and 43 walks, which is not good. The Rox apparently waived him for much the same reason the Twins waived Casilla: They didn't want to pay him at the arbitration rate.

Roenicke is said to have a good fastball. Off his numbers, I'm inclined to lump him into the same category as Jeff Gray and Alex Burnett — not enough missed bats to make up for his lack of command.

Roenicke does have interesting bloodlines: He is the son of former major league outfielder Gary Roenicke, the nephew of current Brewers manager Ron Roenicke, and the brother-in-law of Ian Desmond, the shortstop of the Washington Nationals.

Thomas Field — he'd better field, because there's little reason to believe that he can hit.  Oh, some of his minor league numbers at lower levels look pretty good, but the Rockies' farm system is pretty much all in hitters parks. He's a shortstop who'll turn 26 before the season starts.

I expect the Twins to try to get him through waivers to get him off the 40-man roster so they can assign him to Rochester and have him for the Triple A lineup — much as they did last winter with Pedro Florimon.

The Twins, as of Friday evening, had 35 players on their 40-man roster; that will shrink some more after midnight, when Carl Pavano and, I believe, Scott Baker and Matt Capps officially become free agents. (Saturday morning addendum: As of this morning, the Twins website had removed Pavano and Capps from the roster but Baker was still listed.)