Notes, quotes and comment

Kevin Maitan was the most prominent of the prospects declared free agents by MLB in the Atlanta Braves international investigation, and the 17-year-old shortstop signed with the Angels this week.

LaVelle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune reports that the Twins offered him more, but he chose the Angels because there is less competition in that farm system.

Plausible? Yes. For one thing, he got to keep the Braves bonus, so he's effectively double-dipping. The life-changing aspect of the signing isn't as life-changing.

The Angels system has been notoriously barren for a few years. It's a bit better now, but there is no question that the Twins system, even after graduating a bunch of position players to the majors and even lacking impact position players in the upper levels, is deeper than the Angels.

And that's particularly true at shortstop. The Twins have a 24-year-old major league shortstop in Jorge Polanco. They have a former high first-rounder ticketed for Triple A in Nick Gordon. And at the lower levels -- at the level Maitan played last year and above -- they have Royce Lewis, Wander Javier and Jermaine Palacios, and I'm not sure Maitan is more talented than any of those three.

It would be eminently sensible for Maitan to chose the easier path to the majors.

---

The Twins, the first major league team to extend its protective netting a couple years ago, announced that they will further extend (and raise) the netting at Target Field before next season.

As far as I know, this hasn't drawn near the criticism that the original extension did, And it shouldn't. Much of the Target Field lower bowl is notably close to home plate, distractions are everywhere, and making the experience safer has no real drawback.

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The Twins signed infielder Leonardo Reginatto, first baseman Brock Stassi and infielder Gregorio Petit to minor league contracts.

— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) December 7, 2017

Reginatto was in the Twins org last year, hitting .303 at Rochester in part-time play. Stassi got some major league time with the Phillies and didn't produce. Pettit's had parts of five seasons in the majors but never got out of Triple A in 2017.

Presumably all three will get spring training invites. Presumably all three will not make the active roster.

The non-roster invitees

The Twins on Thursday announced 22 non-roster invitees to spring training. Some of the names are big prospects who are't on the 40-man roster: Jose Berrios and Nick Burdi,  Some are roster fillers for the upper levels of the minors. A couple -- left-handed reliever Fernando Abad and veteran outfielder Ryan Sweeney -- were fresh minor-league signings who may have legitimate chances to make the active roster.

And, as always, there are plenty of catchers on the list, five to be exact. There are also three catchers on the 40-man roster, so the Twins will have eight catchers in camp. The reason, of course, is to have plenty of backstops to be on the receiving end of dozens of bullpen sessions.

The catcher list always intrigues me, partly because most of them have to know that they're just there for the bullpen sessions. Barring injury, we know that Kurt Suzuki and John Ryan Murphy will be on the 25-man roster, and the other six will not. But they get major-league per diem while they hang around camp, and they are jockeying for position in the upper levels of the system.

The Twins made big changes in their catching depth this offseason. Five of the eight catchers in camp last spring are gone: Eric Fryer, Tyler Grimes, Chris Herrmann, Josmil Pinto and Dan Rohlfing. (Left, besides Suzuki, are Mitch Garver and Stuart Turner.)

The Twins have been big in recent years on hyphenated catchers. Herrmann was a catcher-outfielder. Grimes was a catcher-middle infielder. Rohlfing played a lot of outfield and first base. This seldom made a lot of sense to me. Most catchers are too slow for the other up-the-middle positions, and hit too lightly for the corner positions.

This spring's eight catchers includes one multi-position guy, Alex Swim. Last season, at Fort Myers, he played 30 games at catcher (Garver was the primary catcher), 24 at first base and 16 in right field. He also hit .311, which is also the batting average he put up in Cedar Rapids the year before. But the batting average is about all he has. He has three minor league seasons on his resume, more than 700 at-bats, and has yet to hit a homer. He turns 25 in March and hasn't gotten out of A ball.

So I say: Not a prospect. And then I say: If he keeps hitting .311, maybe ...

Non roster infield depth

Jose G. Martinez
is 29 and on his
fourth organziation.

I made this point during the winter: The Twins list of non-roster invitees this spring is relatively light on players from other organizations and particularly light on guys with major league resumes. For the most part the NRIs are guys from the Twins own farm system.

This suggests that the organization is comfortable with the idea of stocking its upper level minor league clubs (Triple A Rochester in particular) with the products of the lower levels. That really hasn't been the case for several years.

Argenis Dias has a
career average in
the minors (11 seasons)
of .264.

There are exceptions, however. There are five infielders among the non-roster invitees, and three of them are new to the organization. (James Beresford has never played for anybody else, and Triple-A lifer Doug Bernier is entering his third season with the Twins.)

Jose Martinez, for example. He started with St. Louis, spent two years with Houston  and last season at Triple A for Oakland. He's 29 and has yet to see the majors.

Argenis Diaz has -- back in 2010, he got 33 at-bats with Pittsburgh. He was 23 then. Now he's 28, and the Twins are his seventh organization.

Heiker Meneses
has 117 minor league
stolen bases.

Heiker Meneses is the youngest of the trio (23) and the least traveled; he's spent all seven of his professional seasons in the Red Sox system. He also appears to be the lightest hitter of the three newcomers.

Presumably these five will be the Rochester infield (other than first base) while Double-A Chattanooga brims with the real prospects, such as Miguel Sano and Jorge Polanco, They are playing this spring not so much in hopes of cracking the opening day roster as to be first in line should an injury open a spot on the major league roster.

The Rochester Five are all multi-position guys. None figure to be anybody you'd want to plug into the starting lineup. My guess is that right now Bernier would be option one for a bench spot. By July, Polanco and Sano might be deemed ready to be given big league playing time, but they're not coming to Minneapolis to be reserves.

Not invited to the bullpen party

The six pitchers who will be in the Twins major league camp as non-roster players -- J.O. Berrios, Tyler Duffey, Mark Hamburger, Taylor Rogers, Ryan O'Rourke and Adrian Salcedo -- fall into two categories.

Three of them -- Berrios, Duffey and Rogers -- are starting pitchers, each of whom have reached Double A at least. They have no chance of making the major league roster out of camp; not only are they not on the 40-man roster, but there are at least seven pitchers in camp ahead of them and probably more.

Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana, Kyle Gibson, Ricky Nolasco, Tommy Milone, Mike Pelfrey, Alex Meyer, Trevor May, Logan Darnell -- these guys have, at the least, all had big league starts. The three non-roster starters will be jockeying for position to sub in for the older arms as they fail or get hurt or both.

Hamberger, O'Rourke and Salcedo are more likely bullpen candidates, although both Hamberger and Salcedo got a few starts last season as well. They too spent 2014 in the upper levels of the farm system, and O'Rourke and Salcedo at least posted intriguing strikeout rates.

I've suggested before that the Twins need to shake up their bullpen, and they have discarded two staples of recent seasons in Jared Burton and Anthony Swarzak. But they also invested in veteran free agent Tim Stauffer. There are bullpen openings, but barring injury we should expect to see Glen Perkins, Stauffer, Brian Duensing and Casey Fien in the bullpen, That's four of the seven jobs already locked down, and probably the four most important roles to boot.

O'Rourke might compete with Caleb Thielbar for a LOOGY job. Hamberger and Salcedo might compete with the likes of Ryan Pressly, Lester Oliveros and others for a utility pitcher spot. None of the pitchers in this paragraph figure at this point to get high-leverage innings.

Left out of this equation are the Twins' high-end bullpen prospects: Nick Burdi, Zach Jones, Jake Reed, J.T. Chargois. This quartet of power arms haven't gotten out of High A ball, and two of them spent much of 2014 recovering from significant arm surgeries, but they represent a more significant opportunity for improvement.

They won't be in major league camp next month. But maybe new manager Paul Molitor and new pitching coach Neil Allen will hear the gloves popping on the minor league side and wonder what's going on.

Burdi in particular might be major-league ready right now, but the Twins are habitually cautious. In his specific case, I believe, too cautious.

The non-roster invitees

Earlier this month the Twins released the names of 18 non-roster invitees to spring training. While that list is certainly incomplete -- for example, Eric Fryer was then still on the 40-man roster -- it still gives some sign of the organizational depth.

And the good news is that the invitees are relatively light on major league experience.

There are no Jason Kubels or Matt Guerriers, no guys who used to be good and are now trying to squeeze one more season out of their declining talents. Only four of the 18 have any major league experience, and even there, two are still in their 20s and another turned 30 this fall. Just three were signed this offseason as minor league free agents.

This suggests that the organization is increasingly confident in the ability of its own players to fill the rosters of its upper level farm teams competently. Rochester and New Britain in recent years have relied heavily on the castoffs of other clubs to fill the rotations and lineups -- and that has shown as well on the big-league club when it reaches down for help.

Shane Robinson, who the Cardinals cut loose rather than offer arbitration, is the one guy in this list who has a real chance of making the roster out of training camp. A few -- Byron Buxton and J.). Berrios, to name two -- are prime prospects in camp to expose them to the new staff (and vice versa). Most are organizational players.

The invitees:

Pitchers

J.O. Berrios

Tyler Duffey

Mark Hamberger

Ryan O'Rourke*

Taylor Rogers*

Adrian Salcedo

* = left-handed

Catchers

Mitch Garver

Tyler Grimes

Dan Rohlfing

Stuart Turner

Infielders

James Beresford

Doug Bernier

Heiker Meneses

Argenis Diaz

Outfielders

Byron Buxton

Eric Farris

Danny Ortiz

Shane Robinson

New to the organization this winter: Robinson; Meneses, who was with Boston; and Diaz, who was with Arizona. The guys with time in the show are Robinson, Hamberger, Diaz and Bernier.

What to make of all these catchers

Ryan Doumit started
56 games at catcher in
2012, 48 as the DH,
16 in left field
and six in right field.

One of my Tweeps expressed surprise last night that the Twins would have nine catchers in training camp. My response was that, with 34 pitchers scheduled to be in camp as well, they need a lot of catchers to handle all those throwing sessions. (Last year they also had nine catchers in camp.)

The truly noteworthy thing is that so many of the nine -- five -- are on the 40-man roster:

• Joe Mauer, three-time batting champ, former MVP, perennial All-Star, future Hall of Famer -- and the starter of just 119 games the past two seasons behind the plate;
• Ryan Doumit, whose left-handed bat is strong, whose right-handed bat is relatively weak and whose defense (at catcher, in the outfield or at first base) is weaker still;
• Drew Butera, a fine receiver who cannot hit;
• Chris Herrmann,who had a good season in Double A and is probably ticketed for Triple A Rochester; and
• Josmil Pinto, who made Baseball America's Class A all-star team for his .295/.361/.473 season at high-A Fort Myers and matched those numbers in a brief Double A stint.

The four non-roster invitees, who will be there to handle bullpen sessions and ease the strain on the other five:

Danny Lehmann
hit .185 in 164
plate appearances
last season in
Double A and
Triple A combined.

• Eric Fryer, a minor league free agent and Triple A veteran;
• Danny Lehmann, a Butera type who split 2012 between Double A New Britain and Triple A Rochester;
• Dan Rohlfing, who split 2012 between Fort Myers and New Britain; and
• Kyle Knutson, a former Gopher who spent 2012 at low A Beloit and figures to move up to Fort Myers.

A few years ago, when the Twins were carrying Mauer, Butera, Mike Redmond, Jose Morales and Wilson Ramos on the 40, they were the only team with so many backstops on the roster. It's not so unique now -- both Boston and Tampa Bay currently list five catchers on their 40-man rosters, and I only checked the one division -- but it still seems like a lot of catchers. Five catchers is 12.5 percent of the roster space.

In the Twins case, at least two of the five -- Doumit and Herrmann -- figure to see considerable time in the outfield. Mauer is supposed to see his time behind the dish escalate, and it will be worth watching to see who loses time as a result, Doumit or Butera. One hundred twenty starts for Mauer leaves 42 for the reserves, and that's a fourth of the season. That's a good slice, but it's about half the load they had to carry in 2012.

Drew Butera has a
$700,000 contract for
the coming season.

Butera, we can easily see from his stats, is a terrible hitter. It's less easy to see in the stats that Doumit is a terrible catcher, but that's his reputation. And the sabermetric research into catching, primitive as it is, backs his reputation as a lousy receiver.

If Mauer is really going to start 120 games behind the plate, do the Twins need to carry three catchers? My guess is that Doumit would see most of his playing time at designated hitter, and given the uniqueness of the catching job, Ron Gardenhire's going to feel a lot more comfortable with Butera as his defensive insurance policy. If Doumit truly gives away as many runs as the piece linked to above surmises, the pitchers will be a lot better with Butera getting the bulk of those 42 games anyway.

These, then, figure to be the catching battles to come in training camp:

• For playing time behind Mauer, between Doumit and Butera;
• For a roster spot, between Butera, Herrmann and every option that doesn't include a third catcher (the two-catcher approach being more of a threat to Butera this March than Herrmann is);
• For jobs in the high minors behind -- probably -- Herrmann at Triple A and Pinto at Double A, between Lehmann, Fryer and Rohlfing. Their positions get all the weaker if Butera doesn't stick in the majors.

A thought on Alex Meyer's camp invite

Alex Meyer, the pitching prospect the Twins acquired from the Washington Nationals at the cost of Denard Span, isn't on the 40-man roster. At the time of the trade, Terry Ryan said it was possible the Meyer would be brought to major league camp.

On Friday, the Twins included Meyer on a 15-player list of non-roster invitees.

It was probably no coincidence that that announcement came on the same day the Twins signed Rich Harden. That makes four starters with major league resumes -- Vance Worley, Kevin Correia, Mike Pelfrey and Harden -- added since Meyer came on board.

That makes it a lot easier for Ryan to expose Meyer's raw stuff to Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson. I suspect that if the Twins rotation was still Scott Diamond and the Void that Ryan would keep Meyer as far from Gardenhire's sight as possible.

One thing all those low-impact veterans do provide is a chance to let Meyer -- and Trevor May, J.O Berrios and perhaps even Kyle Gibson -- advance at their own pace, rather than be pushed into a role they aren't ready for.

A non-roster invitees roster

Dan Rohlfing is
no stranger to the
non-roster invitee
gig; he's a catcher,
and they're always
prominent on such lists.

On Friday, when the Twins announced the signing of Rich Harden to a minor-league contract, they also listed 15 non-roster invitees to spring training.

Fifteen sounded like a realistic number, but there were names missing -- Sam Deduno and P.J. Walters, for example -- that I expected to see, so I figured it wasn't a complete list. Eventually I found this list of 26 invitees buried in the Twins website. There isn't yet a link to it from the roster section, so I'm not sure it's official, but it seems more plausible to me than the 15 names released Friday.

One of the 26 -- and, for that matter, one of Friday's 15 -- is Lester Oliveros, who had Tommy John surgery in August and clearly isn't going to be contending for a job this spring. That leaves 25, which coincidentally happens to be the size of a big-league active roster.

As it turns out, one could actually field a complete team out of the 25. It wouldn't be a good team -- it would lose 100 games easy in the majors, might lose 120 or more. It would be worse than an expansion team. But it's got 11 pitchers (none of them, unfortunately, left-handed), a full infield and a couple of outfielders one could put in center field. And being a list of non-roster invitees, it's got plenty of catchers (four).

So, just for the heck of it, the NonRoster Scrubs as a lineup:

1) Wilkin Ramirez, LF
2) Brian Dinkelman, RF
3) Chris Colabello, DH or 1B
4) Jeff Clement, 1B or DH
5) Mark Sobolewski, 3B
6) Clete Thomas, CF
7) James Beresford, 2B
8) Danny Lehmann, C
9) Ray Olmedo SS

Bench: Brandon Boggs (OF), Eric Fryer (C), Kyle Knudson (C), Dan Rohlfing (C), Delbinson Romero (3B). (Note: Dinkleman can play second base, and Beresford can play short, so there are legitimate reserves.)

Nick Blackburn made
19 starts for the Twins:
4-9, 7.39

Starting rotation:

Sam Deduno
P.J. Walters
Rich Harden
Alex Meyer
Nick Blackburn

Bullpen:

Shairon Martis
Esmerling Vasquez
Luis Perdomo
Bryan Augenstein
Deolis Guerra
Anthony Slama

Martis and Vasquez could be put in the rotation, but those are the five I'd go with. Blackburn, Deduno, Walters and Vasquez combined to make 52 starts for the Twins last season; let's just say there's a reason none of them were kept on the 40-man roster. 

Until I found this list, I had forgotten that the Twins had signed Martis. He's spent most of his career, majors and minors, as a starter, and his work last season certainly didn't give much reason to keep him in mind as an option. But if he's going to be in camp, he's at least a theoretical possibility.

Too many pitchers?

Liam Hendricks (center) will be
in major-league camp, but he
figures to be an easy and early
demotion to the minors.

It is as if the Twins, having realized they needed a needle, purchased a haystack.

Their 40-man roster contains 23 pitchers. They have 25 non-roster invitees coming to camp as well, with nine of them being pitchers.

Thirty-two moundsmen are to descend upon the Hammond Stadium complex in a bit more than two weeks. That's almost enough to fill out not just the major league pitching staff, not just the Triple A staff, but the Double A one as well.

And those are just the guys in major league camp. Reporting a few weeks later to minor-league camp will be at least three pitchers with major league experience, and a fourth who was on the 40 last spring.

It's hardly rare for teams to find useful pitchers in the discard pile. The Twins picked up Matt Guerrier when the Pittsburgh Pirates decided he wasn't worth a spot on their 40-man roster, and he had a pretty good multi-season run in the Minnesota bullpen. Carl Willis, the second-best man in the 1991 bullpen, was a non-roster invitee.

But it's going to take a keen eye and quick judgment for the Twins to find a Guerrier in this crowd, because there are so many arms to look at, and only so many useful innings in which to eye them -- and a lot of innings that, of necessity, can't be used to give marginal guys a chance to show off their abilities, because the guys who are locks to be on the roster have to get ready for the season.

Start the sorting process there. The Twins have five starting pitchers with salaries of $3 million or more: Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn and Jason Marquis. If they're healthy -- no sure thing, as four of them spent time on the disabled list last season -- that's the rotation.

I see six other "starting pitchers" on the 40-man roster: Brian Duensing, Anthony Swarzak, Scott Diamond, Liam Hendricks, Terry Doyle and Matt Maloney. Maybe Jeff Manship belongs in that list too, but I think the Twins now view him as bullpen material. Hendricks isn't going to be in the Minnesota bullpen, but any of the others might.

Phil Dumatrait is
one of nine
non-roster pitchers
invited to the Twins
major league camp.

Matt Capps, Glen Perkins and Joel Zumaya -- again, assuming they're healthy -- have the end game roles in the bullpen secured. With Duensing and Swarzak front-runners for two other spots, that leaves two openings for the remaining 21 pitchers to scrap for.

Nineteen, really. Hendricks is going to be in a minor league rotation, getting innings. Tyler Robertson, a lefty relief prospect added to the 40 during the winter, has had just a taste of Triple A and is probably not deemed ready for the show just yet.

Nineteen pitchers for two jobs is still a lot.

The ones on the 40-man roster have a leg up on the non-roster invitees, but it may not be that decisive. Some of those on the 40 are use-or-lose -- Swarzak, for example, is out of options, and some of the additions may be. Doyle is a Rule V guy. Such players either make the 25-man roster or get cut from the 40, which would make room for a non-roster invitee. I expect at least one such move during camp.

Still, the challenge is twofold. The pitchers (particularly those with whom Ron Gardenhire and Rick Anderson are unfamiliar) need both to impress early, and to do so without overextending themselves. And the talent evaluators need to keep in mind that matchups early in camp against marginal hitters aren't necessarily revealing.

Dusty Hughes, after all, overwhelmed people in the first few weeks in Fort Myers last winter. It didn't carry over to the regular season.

Non-roster invitees and Hall of Fame links

The Twins emerged from their brief holiday dormancy Tuesday with the announcement of 25 non-roster invitees. Coupled with 39 players on the major league roster, and the Twins figure to have 64 players in major league camp when things get started in mid-February.

Phil Dumatrait, who
spent much of 2011 on
the major league roster
after signing as a
non-roster invitee,
hopes to repeat the
experience.

To be blunt about it, a goodly percentage of the invitees aren't serious candidates to make the major league roster. Many are either minor league free agents signed with an eye to beefing up the Triple A roster — remember, one of the Twins goals this year is to appease the Rochester franchise by providing a quality team — or good prospects who lack the service time to force the Twins to roster them.

I've written here before about Brian Dozier and Chris Herrmann, and expect to in the future. They have a future, but that future is not Target Field in April.

The problem with having so many bodies in camp is the fairness factor. It's one thing to have Dan Rohlfing in camp as one of eight catchers; he knows he's there mainly to catch bullpen sessions. But the likes of outfielder Wilkin Ramirez or catcher J.R. Towles (each of whom has had some major league time) may not be pleased with the playing time they get in the exhibition games.

Branch Rickey used to talk about finding quality out of quantity. I'm not sure there's a lot of quality to be found in this bunch — they are, after all, players who aren't on anybody's 40-man roster — and I'm not sure spring training is long enough to identify it if it's there.

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Beyond that, the biggest thing on the horizon may be the Hall of Fame election results, which are to be announced Monday. I've written a couple posts about that in the past week, but here are some other pieces on the topic I can recommend:

Chris Jaffe of Hardball Times offers his annual prediction of the vote. He's usually pretty spot on. His take: Barry Larkin in, Jack Morris closer but still out.

Joe Posnanski talks about the unintended consequences that have come in the past when the writers decide they need to be really restrictive about inductees. To boil a long post down to a sentence: Their attempts to tighten standards backfire. It's relevant to today because of the steroids debate.

More minor league signings

Another batch of minor-league signing with spring training invites for the Twins on Thursday.

It's a rather uninspiring collection of failed prospects -- Steven Pence, J.R. Towles, Aaron Thompson. If any of the three appear in Minnesota this year, it's a bad sign. This is more about the Triple A team. The Twins want to keep their Rochester affiliation, and they can't keep losing 90-plus games there.

Towles is a catcher who bombed a few years ago when handed the regular job in Houston. He has hit in the minors but not in the majors. He and Rene Rivera are likely to be the catchers for Rochester, which figures to slow the advance of Chris Herrmann and Danny Lehmann. In Herrmann's case, that may not be a terrible thing, as he has less than a season in Double A.

Joe Christensen said the Twins have 24 non-roster invitees lined up for spring training. That sounds like a lot, but about nine of them will be catchers around mainly to the the other half of the bullpen sessions for more than two dozen pitchers.