The oft-injured Wilson Ramos

Bad timing: Wilson Ramos will not only miss the playoffs,
he'll enter free agency in need of knee reconstruction.

Wilson Ramos only looks like he was carved out of a really big piece of rock. The former Twins catching prospect, whose 2010 trade still sticks in the craw of many Twins fans who ought to know better, is all too human.

Ramos sustained a torn knee ligament Monday. He's out for the playoffs, another blow to the Washington Nationals' postseason ambitions. It's also really bad timing for Ramos personally; he's going into free agency not as, finally, the All-Star catcher he had been projected to become but with a knee in need of reconstruction.

Ramos has played six full seasons with the Nationals. This was only his second season with more than 400 at-bats, his third with more than 100 games. He has averaged 94 games a year since 2011. Durability has not been among his attributes, and that tendency showed during his minor league development as well.

The Twins traded him during the 2010 season for Matt Capps. The deal was widely criticized; Ramos was clearly the organization's top minor league prospect, and Capps, while a solid reliever at the time, was not touched with greatness.

But the trade was understandable. Bill Smith, then the Twins general manager, made the deal to win now, and Capps deepened the Minnesota bullpen and helped win the division title. It's not his fault that his teammates never got the bullpen a lead in the 2010 playoffs,

Capps got hurt the next year (almost everybody on the 2011 Twins did) and was never an effective major leaguer again. Joe Mauer, who in 2010 appeared to be years away for having to abandon catching, only had two more seasons behind the plate. And catcher has been a frequent problem, offense and defense, since concussion issues forced Mauer to first base.

All that is inarguably true. Also true: For most of the past six years, Ramos wouldn't have fixed the catcher problem.

Kurt Suzuki and other catchers

Kurt Suzuki strokes a two-run double Monday.

Kurt Suzuki hit second in the Twins lineup on Opening Day, and for one day, at least, it worked. The veteran catcher singled and doubled and had all three of the Twins's RBIs.

Good for him. The fact remains that he has complied more than 3,200 major league plate appearances and has a career OPS-plus that is 14 percent below league average. He doesn't belong in the upper half of a major league lineup.

My fear is that Ron Gardenhire will remember this one game of production and base the lineups for the next month on it.

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The Twins had a chance late in the game to get back in it. They were down three going into the eighth, and Aaron Hicks led off with a double. With Pedro Florimon due up against the lefty Chris Sale, Gardenhire sent up a pinch-hitter — not hard-hitting catcher Josmil Pinto, but light-hitting Eduardo Escobar.

Really.

Escobar struck out (I'm tempted to say of course), and while Suzuki later drove in Hicks, the potential rally went no further. Pinto never got into the game.

Keeping Jason Bartlett over Chris Herrmann is a curious decision on the face of it. If this kind of player use is the result, the roster decision looks even worse.

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Remember 2011, when Joe Mauer missed about half the season and the catching load in his absence was carried by the duo of Drew Butera and Rene Rivera? Yeah, you were trying to forget that; those two make Suzuki's numbers look good.

Well, Butera made the Dodgers roster; he's the backup to A.J. Ellis. And Rivera not only made the Padres roster, he started their opener Sunday night.

Never underestimate how much teams value defensive skills at catcher.

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The Washington Nationals were (are) not only counting on Wilson Ramos (once the Twins' top prospect) as their regular catcher, but as their cleanup hitter as well.

The oft-injured backstop didn't make it through Monday's opener, however. He left in the seventh inning with a hand injury, and the Washington Post reported he fractured a bone. The Nats announced, however, that a preliminary X-ray showed no fracture. More exams are expected.

Notes from the weekend

It's gotta be the shoes: Brian Dozier and his
pink cleats on Mother's Day. Dozier hit his
first major league homer.

I spent more time Sunday listening to the radio broadcast (yard work) than the TV one, but Dick-n-Bert apparently drew a Scott Diamond-Cliff Lee comparison.

This elicited some jeers in my Twitter feed, but I'm not about to ridicule that comparison. I made it here last September.

That particular post, as it turns out, is one of the more highly-viewed posts in this blog's tenure. For all I know, my observation may have trickled to the broadcasters and contaminated their analysis. Or not. Either way, they're responsible for what they say on the air, and I'm responsible for what I write here.

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Wilson Ramos, the young catcher the Twins gave up during the 2010 season to acquire Matt Capps, blew out his knee Saturday while pursuing a passed ball and will miss the remainder of the 2012 season.

This is another blow to the Nationals, who have lost outfielder Jayson Werth to a broken wrist, been without Ryan Zimmerman for much of the season and haven't had Mike Morse (31 homers last year) in the lineup yet. And it can't be much fun for Ramos either.

Wilson Ramos is helped off the field after
tearing a knee ligament.

The Ramos-Capps trade is widely regarded as a disaster for the Twins. I'm not that down on it. It did what it was intended to at the time — solidify the then-softening bullpen for the stretch run. Capps did have a worse 2011 season than Ramos did, but the odds are that Capps' 2012 will be better than Ramos'.

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Carl Pavano had an MRI on his shoulder, which is said to have found minor inflammation. This may or may not explain his decreased velocity; inflammation pretty much comes with the territory of being a major league pitcher.

The results are being forwarded to another, outside, specialist (the one who determined that Scott Baker was indeed injured and needed elbow surgery), and in the meantime Pavano is to make his scheduled start today.

It's a situation worth watching. The two best starters this season at Rochester, Diamond and P.J. Walters, are already up; their places have been taken by Liam Hendriks and Matt Maloney (the latter having cleared waivers), and I wouldn't expect an early call-up for either of them.

Francisco Liriano hasn't had a bullpen outing yet, so he's not a likely option if Pavano must miss time. Which would appear to leave Anthony Swarzak or Brian Duensing — and there are indications that Duensing is the likely choice. Duensing has been very good in the bullpen, but if the starters can't get to him, he's not helping the cause much.

The Twins say the goal with Liriano is to eventually return him to the starting rotation. It figures to be difficult to swap out any more struggling starters without bringing him back into the mix.

Dissecting the Bill Smith era: The Capps-Ramos trade

Wilson Ramos hit
16 home runs in 2011
for the Washington
Nationals, then
survived a kidnapping
in his native
Venezuela.

When: July 29, 2010
What: The Twins acquired relief pitcher Matt Capps from Washington for catcher Wilson Ramos and left-handed pitcher Joe Testa
Value: Capps had 13 total win shares in 2010 and 1.1 WAR during his time with the Twins that season. He was retained for 2011 and earned 7 win shares and 0.8 WAR. Ramos had 3 total win shares in 2010 and 13 more last season; he has had 2.7 WAR with Washington. Testa has not reached the majors and pitched in high A ball in 2011 at age 25.
Twins motivation: Bullpen help for the pennant push; also an eye to the 2011 bullpen.

This trade soured badly on the Twins in 2011. Capps, relied on to anchor a reconstructed bullpen, had a poor season. Ramos took over the Nationals catching job and finished fourth in the National League rookie of the year voting. Ramos' absence from the Twins system was easily noted with Joe Mauer spending much of the season on the shelf. Even the unheralded Testa put up a sub-2.00 ERA in the minors.

All of this might be forgiven had Capps played a major role in a World Series trip in 2010. But the Twins got swept out in the first round, and the closer never had a lead to protect.

The trade, to state the obvious, has not worked for the Twins. What happened?

A big part of the trade's failure may be in how the Twins (and others) viewed Ramos.

He was at the time generally considered one of Minnesota's top prospects: Major-league ready (or nearly so) at a premium position. He had some drawbacks as well. He had a history in the minors of injury. He was hitting a mere .241 in Triple A at the time of the trade. And in a brief stint with the big league team during a Mauer injury, he followed an initial flurry of base hits with a series of easy outs on breaking balls.

There had been debate (with this corner of the Internet having its say) on whether Ramos was more valuable to the Twins as a long-term backup to Joe Mauer (who was, at the time of the trade, signed for another eight seasons) or as trade bait. Ron Gardenhire during spring training briefly made a public argument for keeping Ramos on the 25-man roster. Ramos was instead optioned to Triple A, which prevented his service time clock from starting and theoretically enhanced his trade appeal.

Going into 2011, Baseball America had dropped Ramos on its prospect list from No. 58 (entering 2010) to No. 96, an indication that the consensus opinion on him around the game had soured somewhat.

The Twins, in short, sold Ramos at the low point of his value.

Matt Capps is 6-7 with 31 saves
in his time with the Twins. 

As for why the Twins traded for a closer: Joe Nathan had blown out his elbow early in spring training. Jon Rauch had filled in at least adequately in the ninth-inning role (21 saves, four blown saves) but was showing signs of deterioration. (In nine appearances in the month of July, he had just one hitless outing, and his ERA had risen from 2.40 to 3.05.) The Twins felt a need to shore up the bullpen, and once Capps came on board, Rauch seldom appeared in a game situation (two holds, one of them a one-out appearance, and a win in an extra-inning game).

The Twins also knew that Rauch, Jesse Crain and Matt Guerrier were all destined for free agency and were unlikely to return in 2011. Capps would not be free-agent eligible until after 2011; they were trading for him not only for immediate use, but as a bullpen cornerstone in the coming season.

It is safe to say that the trade was not viewed well by Twins-devoted bloggers at the time, and even less so now. But the Twins are doubling down on this deal. They clearly like Capps as a pitcher -- not only enough to give up Ramos for him, but enough to bring him back for 2012 after 2011 didn't go well on any level.

This series is called "Dissecting the Bill Smith era", but one of my basic precepts is that Smith did not make these moves in a vacuum.  I know of no reason to believe that he substituted his judgment over those of more established talent evaluators, particularly Terry Ryan and Mike Radcliffe.

If the Twins overvalued Capps and undervalued Ramos -- and off 2011, that appears to be the case -- it was an organizational failure.

Jamey Carroll, Wilson Ramos and Charlie Lea

Word all over the Internet Friday night had the Twins and infielder Jamey Carroll agreeing to a two-year deal totalling $7 million, with the intent of making the veteran the shortstop.

I'll wait to dig into Carroll until the Twins (a) confirm the signing and (b) explain how they intend to use him.

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Wilson Ramos is alive and free in Venezuela.

Wilson Ramos, the kidnapped catcher for the Washington Nationals and sore spot for critics of Bill Smith, was rescued from his abductors Friday in Venezuela.

That's very good news, but the damage done to baseball in Venezuela -- not only by this high-profile case but by other crimes as well -- may be irreparable. The story of Twins outfielder Joe Benson, robbed at gunpoint almost immediately upon leaving the airport, is hardly unique. Where once almost every major league team had a full-time academy operating in that country, now there are just five.

There are 81 active major leaguers from Venezuela, and more minor leaguers than that pursuing the dream. But it's becoming increasingly risky to scout for players there -- and increasingly risky to be a player there. It's not a healthy situation by any means.

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Charlie Lea fires the first pitch of
the 1984 All Star game in San Francisco.
He won 15 games that year for
Montreal.

Charlie Lea, former major league pitcher who ended his career with the Twins in 1988, died Friday.

Fans of a certain age are more likely to remember Lea as a member of the Montreal Expos, for whom he had five good to decent years, including an All-Star appearance. Then he was beset by arm injuries.

He went 7-7 with a 4.85 ERA for the Twins in his one season in Minnesota, and I remember him because it sure seemed like I was at every one of his Metrodome starts.

I had a partial season ticket package back then -- 26 games, including every Saturday, every Monday, and day games during the week. (The Free Press was an afternoon paper in that bygone era, with no Sunday paper.) The luck of the rotation meant that I saw Frank Viola, who won the Cy Young, twice all season, but drew Lea far too often.

He had been a good pitcher once, but that time was past.

Wilson Ramos, still missing

Fans in Valencia, Venezuela, hold a vigil Thursday night
outside the ballpark for the kidnapped Wilson Ramos.

We're almost two full days into the abduction of former Twins catcher Wilson Ramos, and the news is ... nothing.

Venezuelan police said Thursday that he's still alive. On Friday they denied reports that his body has been found. If there has been any contact between abductors and anybody else, it hasn't been made public (and probably shouldn't.)

I have a bad sense about this the longer it goes on.

Here's a good Tom Powers (Pioneer Press) column on the Twins and their dwindling connections to Venezuela.

Wilson Ramos kidnapped

Wilson Ramos (2010)

Wilson Ramos, the catching prospect the Twins traded during the 2010 season for Matt Capps, was kidnapped today in his native Venezuela.

Obviously, this is not a good thing for Ramos, the Washington Nationals (his current club) or for the myriad major league players who live, are playing winter ball or have family in Venezuela.

The Twins have long been active in Venezuela, but, as Seth Stohs notes, they've pulled back some in recent years because of the violence (and, I assume, the anti-U.S. politics of Hugo Chavez). I'm not sure exactly who the Twins have playing winter ball there this year, but I'm sure there are several prospects.

Addendum: LaVelle Neal a while back list the Twins prospects (and major leaguers) slated to play winter ball. A dozen of them were to play in Venezuela, including Jose Mijares, Joe Benson and Rene Tosoni. Players come and go from winter teams, and I have no idea who exactly is there. Mijares, like Ramos, is from Venezuela.

A tip of the Capps

The Twins on Thursday night traded Wilson Ramos and a minor league pitcher of little obvious importance to Washington for relief pitcher Matt Capps, who is to supplant Jon Rauch as the ninth-inning saves specialist.

For a Washington-centric view of the trade, click here.

Either Ramos has been badly overhyped in these parts (possible) or his performance this year, and in particular his inability to deal with breaking balls, has lowered his value (also possible). I was envisioning Ramos as the centerpiece of a trade for a higher caliber of pitcher — a Cliff Lee or Joakim Soria — and in that light, this deal is a disappointment. Ramos, I suspect, isn't viewed by other organizations as that good a prospect.

Capps made the National League All-Star team this year, but that's more a reflection of the "All-Star for every team" rule than of his talent. I like Capps, but if the Twins valued him because he's a "proven closer," that's a mistake. In terms of his talent and ability, he's more like Matt Guerrier or Rauch than a healthy Joe Nathan.

That said, I have been increasingly uncomfortable with Rauch in the ninth-inning job. Aaron Gleeman (who does not like this trade) has suggested repeatedly that by limiting Rauch to the ninth inning the Twins have dissipated one of his strengths — his durability.

Capps will still be under team control next season — arbitration eligible — and with Rauch, Guerrier and Jesse Crain all in the final years of their contracts, that was apparently an attraction for the Twins as well, especially with the uncertainty about Nathan's return. But if Capps winds up with 40 saves, he's likely to be an expensive piece of Nathan insurance.

I think Capps will be a slight improvement in the ninth inning on Rauch — and Rauch will be more valuable in the sixth, seventh or eighth innings than, let us say, Anthony Slama. So it's a deeper bullpen, at least for the remains of this year. Whether that's sufficient reason to surrender Ramos ... I'm skeptical, but but it may work out that way.

Notes, quotes and comments

Wilson Ramos, the Twins catching prospect and primo trade chip (pictured) , will miss at least a week with a strained oblique muscle.

This does not damage his trade value. It doesn't require the reconstruction of a joint, it doesn't require surgery, it doesn't figure to be long-lasting. Rest it, heal it, and nobody will remember it a week after he's back.

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Rick Porcello, who did such a fine job for the Detroit Tigers last season as a 20-year-old rookie, has been returned to the minors.

Which happens with a 4-7, 6.14 line. His walk rate is about where it was last year, but his K rate is down — and it was too low last season.

The line on him last year was that he was deliberately avoiding strikeouts in order to keep his pitch counts down. But pitching just doesn't work that way. If he doesn't learn to miss bats, he will not become a star.

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First Akinori Iwamura, now Edwin Encarnacion — another third baseman on the market. Encarnacion was DFA'd Monday by Toronto.

The Twins should pass on him too.

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ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick has this column on Justin Morneau.

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Ron Gardenhire, from this Pioneer Press piece on Joe Mauer's "slump":

"We could watch video and I could show you probably 25 balls that he's lined out. I guarantee, most hitters, you might see 10. Mauer you'd see 25, maybe 30 balls where he's lined out. Rockets hit at people. It all evens out; that's what they say. Well, let me tell you, right now, Joe's got about two weeks of base hits (coming) to even out."

Poll stuff: Pitchers and catchers

On the previous poll: Twenty-three people participated in the Hall of Fame question.

Sixteen (69 percent) think Jack Morris should be in; eight (39 percent) voted for Jim Bunning; five (21 percent) for Jamie Moyer; one each (4 percent) for Rube Marquard and Jesse Haines; zero for Ted Lyons.

Personally, I rank them Bunning, Morris, Lyons, Moyer, Haines and Marquard, and probably draw the line after Morris, but perhaps after Lyons.

The new poll, on Wilson Ramos, is up.

Shows what I know

Contrary to my speculation of Monday morning, Nick Blackburn is back and starting today, with Jeff Manship (probably) returning to Rochester and the Twins riding with an 11-man pitching staff for the time being.

That time being until Joe Mauer is ready to roll again. Which is apparently likely to be sooner than the "week-to-week" floated Sunday by Ron Gardenhire, who apparently said that in hopes of dissuading media types from asking every day if Mauer was ready again.

Meanwhile, we get to watch the legend of Wilson Ramos (above) continue to grow.

Notes, quotes and comments

Twins win Thursday, raising their record to 7-3.

Seven and three against the Angels, White Sox and Red Sox. Man, I'd take 7-3 against the Royals.

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Ron Mahay, who is in the running to be the last "replacement player" from the 1993-94 strike, is back, with Alex Burnett returning to the minors.

This gives the Twins three lefties in the pen. Mahay is clearly a LOOGY. Jose Mijares is talented enough to be more than a LOOGY, but Ron Gardenhire seems more comfortable spotting him against lefties, and so far this spring Mijares hasn't even done that well. And Brian Duensing is nominally the long man, but has done some LOOGY duty as well.

I assume that when Clay Condrey is deemed ready to be activated, he'll assume Duensing's long-man role, with Duensing going back to Triple A to stretch his arm out and be ready to step into the rotation if (when) needed.

For now, at least, Gardenhire has options while pitching coach Rick Anderson tries to get Mijares straightened out.

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Jayson Stark of ESPN.com had some Twins items worthy of contemplation in Thursday's Rumblings and Grumblings:

• Jon Rauch hasn't convinced scouts that he's a top-grade closer
• Catching prospect Wilson Ramos is unlikely to be traded
• Rauch, Matt Guerrier and Jesse Crain are all to be free agents after this season, suggesting that the Twins will have to rebuild their bullpen for 2011.

I agree with the first evaluation, which leads me to question the wisdom of the second one. Not that I'm saying they should trade Ramos for another B-grade closer. But he shouldn't be in the way of getting a high-end guy for the bullpen.

Closing the committee

The Twins' planned closer by committee never convened.

On Friday, manager Ron Gardenhire anointed Jon Rauch (left) as his ninth-inning go-to-guy.

How long the tattooed one will keep the position is anybody's guess. Mine is "not long." I predict the Twins will trade for relief help before April is out.

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On a somewhat related note, a relative novice to the world of Twins blogging, one Adam Beck, recently dropped me an e-mail. He is wise enough to speak respectfully of my work and foolish enough to seek my advice about his blog. (Be careful of what you wish for, young man!)

He also stuck a comment onto my previous post, on the "minor" stories of spring training, about the wisdom of trading prime catching prospect Wilson Ramos for a closer:

My question to you, and to everybody else out there is, 'would you/should you trade Ramos, one of the organization's best positional prospects, for a closer? Anthony Slama is waiting in the minors with a lot of closer experience under his belt, and most baseball experts view a closer as created, not born.' Thoughts?

Two points:

1) Minor league closers are seldom prospects, much less prospective closers. In general, good relief pitchers were starters in the minors. Slama has a chance to be an exception to that rule, but with a walk rate last year of more than 4 per nine innings, he's NOT going to be a closer in the bigs.

If there's a minor leaguer in the Twins system who projects as a closer, it's Carlos Gutierrez, who is currently being used as a starter. As a starter, he gets more innings, thus gets more experience. There's a big difference in the learning curve for a pitcher getting 120 innings as compared to one getting 40 innings.

2) Would I trade Ramos for somebody to fill the closer role? Depends on who that closer is. I wouldn't move him for the likes of Kerry Wood or Trevor Hoffmann or anybody else on their way out. If the Royals would do Joakim Sora for him, absolutely, but I don't expect that to be on anybody's agenda.

In truth, I'd probably be less inclined to trade Ramos for an "established" closer than for somebody who hasn't had the job but has the talent to take it. Daniel Bard of the Red Sox, for example. And even there, the Twins might want more than a one-for-one swap.

A more likely prospect to trade away for somebody along the lines of the Padres' Heath Bell is Ben Revere. If Revere turns into the player the Twins think he will become, he'll be Denard Span. The Twins have one of him already — and a bunch more outfielders in the pipeline.

The end of camp

The headline developments of Spring Training 2010 are pretty obvious: Joe Nathan's injury and Joe Mauer's contract. I've written plenty about each, both in this blog and in the print column, and while I'm sure there'll be more to say at some point, I haven't anything today.

But there were under-the-radar developments worth noting as well ...

Ben Revere. The non-roster invitee impressed everybody this spring, particularly Ron Gardenhire. He even had four extra-base hits, a bit of a surprise considering that he had all of 19 last season in High A ball.

He hasn't had an at-bat in Double A, much less Triple A, but Gardenhire already sees him as a possible call-up this summer.

Jacque Jones. (Photo above) Another who is possibly an outfield injury away from the call. Jones had been released by three teams the past two years — Tigers, Marlins, Reds — but the longer training camp went, the better he hit. He's 35, but there appears to still be some juice in him.

I would rather he made the 25-man roster out of camp than Alexi Casilla.

Kevin Slowey. The right hander opened camp talking about how his pitching wrist might never feel the same after what he described as a reconstruction. But his command and control — the key to his pitching — was as spot-on in exhibition play as ever.

Francisco Liriano. The outward signs are good. But ... except for his final outing, against the Pittsburgh Pirates "b" lineup — so weak it doesn't deserve a capital letter — he didn't go deep in his starts, suggesting that his fastball command remains lacking.

There are a lot of expectations here. Until I see him using the fastball well, I'm going to be skeptical.

Wilson Ramos. Even more than Revere, Gardenhire thinks he's ready for the bigs. The front office right now thinks he's more valuable in the minors — perhaps to keep his service time clock from starting to tick.

If the Twins decide they have to trade for a closer, Ramos is the most valuable chip in they have in the minors — a premium, ready-for-the-majors prospect at a premium position.

Juan Portes. Played mostly outfield in camp, but word is he'll play third at Double A. He hit three homers early in exhibitions, but once the breaking balls came out, the long balls (and his playing time) diminished.

Bullpen issues. Clay Condrey has not impressed and reports some shoulder stiffness; I won't be surprised he goes on the DL in the next week. Jose Mijares has not been sharp. Pat Neshek's velocity is down slightly from his pre-injury days.

Butera beats out Ramos — not really

Drew Butera (left) will (unless injury intervenes) open the season as the Twins' backup catcher. Wilson Ramos will marinate in Triple A.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Ramos hasn't played Triple A ball; what with injuries, he's had just abut a half season at Double A. He can become a top-flight catcher, but that's less likely to happen sitting five or six days a week in the majors than playing regularly in Rochester.

Ah, but the Twins already have a top-flight catcher, and that's putting it mildly. If Ramos hits .330 with 30 homers in Triple A, he's still not taking the catching job from Joe Mauer.

I think Ron Gardenhire had it right in his comments after Tuesday's game, in which Ramos hit a ball over the 30-foot-high green batter's eye in center field:

Those are all discussions that I'm going to have with the general manager, but we just signed a catcher to eight years. You know what I'm saying? (Ramos is) going to get his games, not a lot of them, but he would give me more of an ability to play him than most other backup catchers. I wouldn't be afraid to give Joe more days off, let's put it that way, because of this kid.

Him and Butera, they're both really good catch-and-throw guys. One can hit a ball over the center-field wall.

The Mauer contract and Wilson Ramos

A side note to Joe Mauer's contract extension is the fate of Wilson Ramos (right), one of the few Twins minor leaguers who combines top-level talent with near-MLB readiness.

I commented on Ramos early on in this month's "Name that Twin" goofiness. I suggested at the time that — assuming Mauer was locked up — Ramos would be more valuable as a trading chip than as a backup catcher and specifically mentioned using him to acquire a Joe Nathan replacement.

Seth Strohs disagrees. From his Sunday post on the Mauer contract: NO, they should not trade Wilson Ramos, at least not for something as insignificant as a relief pitcher like Heath Bell.

I wouldn't call a Bell acquisition insignificant, especially since we know how wedded Ron Gardenhire is to the closer model of bullpen use. I would agree that Ramos figures to have more value over the course of his career than Bell will in what remains of his — but that assumes Ramos is going to play.

There may be one of those recurring manager-front office disagreements going on in Twinsland. Gardy, seeking wins now, probably wants to open the season with Ramos as his reserve catcher; the player development people probably want Ramos to play regularly in Triple A.

Assuming Mauer stays healthy — and we're all day to day — Ramos isn't ever going to be the Twins regular backstop. He'll grow old waiting for Mauer to grow old, just as Elston Howard did waiting for Yogi Berra.

I still like the trade bait notion best. Barring that, there's little reason to put him in Triple A next month. It's more important to have a reserve catcher Gardenhire is willing to insert in Mauer's place with some frequency than to develop him for a No. 1 job that isn't going to happen here.

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A followup on my previous post's notion that Mauer is likely to overperform his new contract early and underperform it late: Here's a link to others with the same idea.

Name that Twin, Part 2

Today's mystery Twin is to the right. I've diddled with the photo name to keep the secret. (Still learning after all these years.)

Thursday's was indeed Wilson Ramos, a 22-year-old catcher generally regarded as the Twins No. 2 prospect. (No. 1 is Aaron Hicks, an outfielder who spent last season in low A ball and is not in major league camp.)

Ramos does pretty much everything well except run, draw walks and stay in the lineup. He had two injuries last season — a broken finger and a hamstring — and had just a bit more than 200 at-bats.

In winter ball (in his native Venezuela) Ramos hit .332/.397/.582 and led the league in RBIs and total bases, was second in slugging percentage and third in home runs. Baseball America named him Winter Player of the Year. Hard to argue with it.

All roads these days lead back to Joe Mauer and Joe Nathan. Should Mauer and the Twins part company, Ramos figures to be the Twins next catcher. If Mauer stays, Ramos figures to be more valuable as a trading chip than as a backup.

The notion of dealing Mauer for a closer is preposterous. The notion of dealing Ramos for a young gun — for example, Daniel Bard of the Red Sox — to take Nathan's place is not.

But first they have to cement Mauer into place.