Thoughts on Butera, Burroughs and Plouffe

Drew Butera is to
open 2012 in the
minors.

The Twins optioned out Drew Butera this morning and told him they were going to carry two catchers.

J.R. Towles remains in camp, and I believe fellow non-roster invitee Danny Lehmann does as well, but their status will change in the coming days.

Reading between the lines, it is increasingly obvious that Justin Morneau is going to spend most of his time as the designated hitter, which means Ryan Doumit will get most of his at-bats playing a position. This is not going to help the defense, but many of the Twins decisions of the past week have been in the direction of sacrificing defense for offense.

* The chatter this morning has Sean Burroughs making the 25-man roster. I don't see a good reason for this.

What is his role? Burroughs is not -- or shouldn't -- going to play third ahead of Danny Valencia. He's not -- and even more emphatically shouldn't -- play first ahead of Chris Parmelee. While there was chatter all spring about running him out at second base, that hasn't happened, nor should it.

Sean Burroughs has
a career slugging
percentage of .357
in more than 1,800
MLB at-bats.

Burroughs profiles as a pinch-hitter. Left-handed, hits for average, almost no power, limited on defense to the corner infield. (Not that he's good there either; on Friday, playing first base, he allowed a Boston runner to score from second on a sac bunt.) That makes him a reasonable fit on a National League roster, not so much on an AL squad -- especially one that doesn't have a legitimate middle infield backup.

* In connection with that last point, Trevor Plouffe is starting Saturday's exhibition game at second base. This is apparently to prepare him for such use after pinch-hitting for Alexi Casilla or Jamey Carroll.

It's perfectly logical. He has established that he's an awful middle infielder, so the Twins had him spend the   winter and spring focusing on becoming an outfielder. This is bound to make him a better infielder. How can it not?

Contempating Chris Cates

Chris Cates (right) and James Beresford at
the jump rope section during spring training 2008.

I took note earlier in the week when the Twins released a couple of former high draft picks.

Also axed that same day (as were several others) was Chris Cates. Cates' release wasn't as significant as the washing out of a supplemental first-round pick and a third-round pick, but I wanted to take note anyway.

Cates was a noticable player for his size, or more accurately his lack of it. He was listed as 5-foot-3, 145 pounds. The Twins drafted him in the 37th round out of the University of Louisville in 2007, and he ground his way up the farm system until stalling out at Double A.

Chris Cates steps over a hurdle during
a stretching exercise.

Five-three is mighty small for a professional athlete, and Cates couldn't hit enough to make it to the top. It's surprising, really, that he got a chance to go as far as he did. Size matters to scouts. He had to show them something just to get past his diminutive stature.

He had enough to be an "organizational guy." Farm systems exist to develop future major leaguers, but not everybody on a minor league roster is going to make it to the top. Organizational guys are there to fill the gaps and help establish the attitude.

The photos here were taken by my wife during the morning we spent on the minor league side during our 2008 trip to spring training. She was struck by the sight of Cates trying to step over the hurdles in the stretching segment and half-jokingly suggested that he should have a ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) waiver for that exercise.

Cates spent four years chasing a dream that was probably never realistic for him. I doubt he regrets it — although he probably got tired of posing for photos with sometimes teammate Loek Van Mil (7-foot-1) — but he probably also hopes his next endeavor goes better.

COPOP III: The injury factor

Kyle Waldrop's
chances of making
the 25-man roster
are pretty much gone.

The Twins open the 2012 season a week from today. I believe that the bullpen would be settled now, if not for the injury factor -- not merely among relief candidates themselves, but in the starting rotation.

Kyle Waldrop, who I figured was most likely to emerge with the final middle relief slot, is battling a sore elbow. LaVelle Neal said today the soreness was on the inside of the joint, and that gets my attention.

Then there are two putative members of the starting rotation whose status is up in the air: Scott Baker (elbow) and Jason Marquis (family emergency). Marquis has been out of camp for roughly two weeks now after his daughter's injury.

This may not have a lot of impact on the bullpen as the season begins. The Twins have an off day scheduled during their first turn through the rotation, and Liam Hendriks is likely to be Plan B if and when the Twins need to fill in for one of the starters. They won't necessarily need to get to Matt Maloney or Anthony Swarzak until the second week of the season.

So I'll leave Maloney and Swarzak in their places, and go with Jeff Gray in the spot previously filled by Waldrop:

Jeff Gray pitched
Friday against the
Red Sox and gave up
a two-run homer to
Cody Ross.

Closer: Matt Capps
Setup 1: Glen Perkins
Setup 2/Middle Relief 1: Jared Burton
LOOGY1/MR2: Brian Duensing
MR3: Gray (Alex Burnett, Casey Fien)
MR4/L2: Maloney
Long Man: Swarzak


I'm not particularly thrilled with Gray, but 

• Gray's been pitching earlier in games than Fien;
• Burnett has been ineffective;
• Gray, who is on the 40-man roster, is out of options.

Terry Ryan said in the wake of the demotion of Tsuyoshi Nishioka, that options would not be a factor in who makes the team. I do not give that full credence. Options matter. They may matter less this spring than in some previous ones, but they matter.

The Willingham Shift: Ben Revere

Ben Revere: His future
now appears to be
that of a reserve outfielder.

Ben Revere opened camp as the putative left fielder. With less than a week to go, he's merely a contender for playing time in right field — the outfield spot his skill set is least suited for.

He'll still be on the 25-man roster — there's nobody else in the mix who wouldn't be an embarrassment in center field when Denard Span needs a break — but The Willingham Shift strongly suggests that the Twins have decided that Revere is a fourth outfielder.

It's a reasonable conclusion. Span and Revere are very similar players — left-handed singles hitters with speed and relatively weak arms. Span is simply better at most aspects of baseball than is Revere. Span throws better, he has more power, he has the more discerning eye at the plate. Revere is probably a bit faster, but Span isn't exactly a Molina brother.

I said this last year: There are plenty of good, even great, teams with one guy like this in their outfield. The 1927 Yankees had Earle Combs. The Yankees of the mid 70s had Mickey Rivers. The Indians in the 1990s had Kenny Lofton. The Marlins won a World Series with Juan Pierre. On and on ... Omar Moreno, Willie Wilson, Doc Cramer, Bill Verdon ...

There are few pennant winners with two of them. You need some power from your outfield corners. And Revere has less power than most of the speed merchants mentioned.

If Revere is ever to become a major league regular, it will be as a lead-off man center fielder. The Twins have a better one in Span. As long as they're on the roster together, Revere is a fourth outfielder.

It's a role that fits his skill set. He's certainly more the prototype reserve outfielder than prototype corner outfielder.

The Willingham Shift: The 25th man

Drew Butera: Is a
third catcher more
useful than a
second shortstop?

For most of camp, the assumption has been that the Twins bench would have this composition:

1. A third catcher
2. Trevor Plouffe (outfield)
3. Luke Hughes (corner infield/second base)
4. Tsuyoshi Nishioka (middle infield)

The first crack in that assumption came when Nishioka washed out. It seemed likely at that point that the Twins would be looking outside the organization for a reserve infielder who could play shortstop once a week or so.

But now it appears that Chris Parmelee will be somewhere in the starting lineup, and that Ben Revere will be  one of the four reserves:

1. Revere (outfield)
2. Plouffe
3. Hughes
4. ???

To identify the 25th man, we must first identify his role. To identify his role, we need to know what Justin Morneau can do, because Morneau's role will determine if Ryan Doumit is in the lineup at a position or as the designated hitter.

If Doumit is in the outfield (or even at first), he's more available as a mid-game substitute for Joe Mauer at catcher than if he's the designated hitter. Use the DH in the field, and the pitchers now have to bat.

The Butera Corollary to the Cuddyer Principle comes into play here: Catcher is a different beast. The Cuddyer Principle holds that one can put a right-handed major leaguer (Luke Hughes, let us say) at just about any position and get away with it for a while; put Hughes at shortstop, and it will take a few days, weeks, months to realize that he's not a shortstop. The Butera Corollary holds that if you put Hughes behind the plate, it will be real obvious within an inning that he's no catcher.

This is why managers hate being without a bona fide catcher in reserve. Ron Gardenhire is not eager to give up the DH and ask his pitchers to do something they're not trained to do (hit and run the bases); he's not eager to embarrass Hughes (or anybody else) by having him catch.

So ... If Morneau plays first base, and Doumit is the DH (with Parmelee as the usual right fielder), I would expect a third catcher. If Morneau is the standard DH, Doumit's playing time will come in in the field, and the Twins have less need for a third catcher, and could go with a shortstop-ready infielder to fill out their bench.

The Twins do have emergency options. Willingham spent most of his minor league days as a catcher; he hasn't, however, been behind the plate in years. Morneau was signed as a catcher, but was quickly moved to first base, and given his concussion history, exposing him to foul tips isn't a good idea.

As for shortstop: As written here already, the Twins don't have a good reserve shortstop option on their roster. Brian Dozier has to play, not sit.

I think it likely that a usable reserve shortstop will be available on waivers; I think it more likely that the Twins will go with a third catcher. They may not have a real use for him, but I suspect Gardenhire will feel more comfortable with that security blanket.

Friday: Ben Revere

The Willingham Shift: Chris Parmelee

Chris Parmelee hit
six doubles and four
homers during his
September callup.

One way to rationalize The Willingham Shift: Chris Parmelee has beaten out Ben Revere.

Ron Gardenhire probably views it that way, although he's hardly about to say it out loud, especially before the opening roster is finally set.

In a sense, this is how it should be. Both Parmelee (2006) and Revere (2007) were first-round picks out of high school, but Parmelee went earlier in his draft class and got the bigger bonus. Revere was generally seen as a bit of an overdraft at the bottom of the first round; Parmelee went about where the scouting consensus had him.

Yet Revere, despite starting a year later, reached the majors a year ahead of Parmelee.

They are, of course, very different players -- both left-handed hitters, but Revere is a speedy slap hitter, and the bulkier and slower Parmelee has displayed what Bill James years ago wrote of as "old player skills" -- lower batting average, higher walk and strikeout rates, power.

James, to my recollection, first used that term in discussing Tom Brunansky, and it may not be coincidence that Parmelee revived his flagging prospect status in a season when he had Bruno as his hitting coach.

His minor league career, in total, has been lackluster. But the Parmelee of last September and this spring training has generated consistently good at-bats, and he is said to have come on strong in the second half of 2011 in New Britain. It is certainly possible that something has clicked for Parmelee and that the talents that made him a first-round pick have finally turned into major league skills.

With Willingham in left, it's difficult to see how the lineup works without Parmelee somewhere in it. If Justin Morneau is the designated hitter, Parmelee is the obvious choice to play first; if Morneau can play first, Parmelee (who has played almost as many games in right field as at first in the minors) is a more likely choice to play right than Revere or even Trevor Plouffe. Or he could be the DH, with Ryan Doumit in right.

Having Parmelee -- seen entering camp as likely to be assigned to Triple-A Rochester -- on the major league roster will have a ripple effect on the bench. That will be the topic for Thursday.

COPOP II and minor-league releases

Jeff Manship made
the Opening Day roster
in 2011, but was
quickly demoted and
had an injury-marred
season.

A few things have happened since my first attempt at predicting the Twins Opening Day bullpen -- or, as I like to call it, Current Outsider Projected Opening Pen.

The most significant development came today, when Jeff Manship was optioned out. (He was one of four cuts Tuesday; OF Joe Benson was also optioned out, and C Rene Rivera and IF Pedro Florimon, both non-roster guys, were reassigned to the minors.)

Manship had been a serious candidate for the pen. Brendan Wise, reassigned on Monday, less so.

Another development during the weekend, almost lost in the Josh Willingham position switch news of the same day, was Rob Antony, assistant GM, saying in a radio interview that Matt Maloney and Jared Burton had legs up on bullpen berths.

And so, COPOP II, with remaining candidates in parentheses, listed in the order in which I perceive their chances:

Closer: Matt Capps
Setup 1: Glen Perkins
Setup 2/Middle Relief 1: Burton
LOOGY1/MR2: Brian Duensing
MR3: Kyle Waldrop (Alex Burnett, Casey Fien, Jeff Gray)
MR4/L2: Maloney
Longman: Anthony Swarzak

---

One aspect of all the non-roster invites the Twins made: When they got assigned to minor-league camp, they pushed some returning minor leaguers out.

A couple of fairly significant names got axed Tuesday, at least in terms of the team's desire to grow its own power arms. Matt Bashore, a lefty who was taken in the supplemental round in 2009, was released; his career was derailed by a second bout of Tommy John surgery. Also released was Ben Tootle, a hard-throwing third-rounder from the same draft.

I said here after the 2009 draft that the Twins had gambled on arms with injury histories. Bashore and Tootle are gone; Billy Bullock (second round) is gone, traded last spring for Scott Diamond; Kyle Gibson (first round) is on the shelf after his own TJ surgery. Doesn't appear to have gone too well.