The Twins put Denard Span on the disabled list Thursday. Really, the only issue I have with the move is that, in retrospect, it should have been done more than two weeks ago, when he injured his shoulder/collarbone in a tumbling attempt at a catch.
The DL move is an odd one for Aug. 30, because the rosters expand Sept. 1. But putting Span on the DL makes it possible to bring back Matt Carson, who would not be eligible to return this soon without a corresponding disabled-list move. (He would have had to remain on the Rochester roster for 10 days from his demotion.)
Carson or no, I would still expect the Twins to find considerable playing time for Chris Parmelee while Span is out. Parmelee has started the last two games in right field, with Ben Revere playing center.
Another possibility, come September and the arrivals of the call-ups, would be someone such as Oswaldo Arcia or Aaron Hicks. (The Twins haven't named their call-ups, but those outfielders, currently playing for New Britain in Double A, would seen likely candidates.)
Meanwhile, I (and others on the outside of the organization) marvel at what appears to be yet another mishandled injury. Span was hurt on Aug. 12. He remained sidelined but on the active roster for 11 days. Then he played three of four games, then sat for three more before finally being shelved.
I'm no doctor or athletic trainer, but this kind of thing keeps happening to this team, and it's baffling.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Notes, quotes and comment
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| Commissioner Bud Selig had a backdrop of former All-Stars for the announcement Wednesday that Target Field would be the site of the 2014 All-Star game. Behind the commish: Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, Roy Smalley and Paul Molitor. |
Call me jaded, but in this era of interleague play and cable, the All-Star Game itself doesn't interest me as much as the Futures Game does. The All-Star Game is now a promotional vehicle for Fox; the Futures Game is a glimpse of, yeah, the future.
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Also not a surprise: Scott Diamond on Wednesday dropped his appeal and began serving his suspension. By dragging the process out beyond his Tuesday start, he pushed the time of his next start into September, when the rosters are expanded.
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What is a surprise: San Deduno didn't walk a man in his seven shutout innings Wednesday. Ninety-eight pitches, 68 strikes — better than two strikes for every ball. I didn't think that kind of performance was possible from him.
Until he does it regularly, though, I'll consider this one a fluke — a fluke that had some help from the Seattle hitters.
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Jeff Gray was outrighted to Triple A on Wednesday, which opened a spot on the 25-man roster for Chris Parmelee, who promptly stepped into the lineup as the right fielder. (He went 1-for-5 with two runs scored.) With Denard Span again day-to-day with his shoulder/collarbone issue, I would expect Parmelee to get a lot of playing time in right field (with Ben Revere playing center).
The Twins now have three openings on their 40-man roster. One will certainly be filled come September by P.J. Walters, who is apparently about ready to come off the 60-day disabled list.
As with Nick Blackburn, I don't see the Twins outrighting Gray only to turn around and restore him to the 40-man roster so that they can have him in the majors in September. I would think they could find something else to try.
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Lester Oliveros, the hard-throwing relief prospect acquired last year in the Delmon Young trade, had elbow surgery Wednesday that blew into something more than removing bone chips. It turned into Tommy John surgery, which pretty much wipes out his 2013 season.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Mauer and waivers
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| No matter how much certain talk-radio mouths may desire it, the Twins aren't waiving Joe Mauer good-bye. |
It's pure barnyard waste material. Joe Mauer isn't going anywhere. Period.
Joe Mauer has a full no-trade clause. Joe Mauer has something over $160 million left on his contract. And despite the "best" efforts of Dan Barrerio and Jim Souhan to make it so, Minnesota has not become a living hell for the St. Paul native.
Again: Joe Mauer isn't getting traded.
Rosenthal knows this, of course; he's been covering baseball a long time. He knows that everybody gets put on waivers in August. Everybody. It might mean something; it usually doesn't.
In this case, it doesn't.
Why, you may ask, would the Twins bother putting Mauer on waivers if they have no intent of acting on them? Two reasons:
- It's cover for everybody else. Nothing personal about putting you on waivers, Terry Ryan or Rob Antony can tell a player. We run everybody through waivers. Even Mauer.
- It might serve as conversation starter. Somebody calls about Mauer, and the talks can be deflected to other players.
Rosenthal, as I say, may be the best of the rumormongerers. But he's just a rumormongerer, and therefore not to be trusted.
Thoughts after a trip to Target Field
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| Scott Diamond allowed five runs Tuesday for only the second time this season. |
Diamond gave me some of what I like about him — he threw strikes and got ground balls — and some of what worries me about him: A lack of strikeouts.
In his two-run third inning, Diamond had two strikes on each of the Seattle batters who reached base, but was unable to put them away. His outs tended to come quickly in at-bats; if the hitter dragged the at-bat out beyond three pitches or so, Diamond had trouble finishing him off.
Ron Gardenhire (in a postgame soundbite I heard on the radio) and Diamond (on Twitter) said he got hurt by a couple of bad pitches — the two-run double by Kyle Seager, the three-run homer by Dustin Ackley — but my sense of it is that what made those mistakes painful were the two-strikes-and-no-out at-bats that preceded them.
I've written before about how two-strike counts blunt even the best hitters. In this game, at least, that didn't work for Diamond.
* It's one thing for the Twins to be shut down by Felix Hernandez. He's great. He does that. Getting shut down by Hisashi Iwakuma, who barely threw more strikes than balls in his six innings (49 strikes, 43 balls) is another matter.
Iwakuma walked four, hit a man, threw a wild pitch (and had another pitch elude catcher Miguel Olivo, which was ruled a passed ball), was behind hitters constantly ... and the Twins just had bad at-bat after bad at-bat. They mustered just one hit, and really didn't come close to any others.
* Trevor Plouffe hasn't hit since returning from the disabled list. What's more, his defense at third base has really fallen off.
Phil Mackey wrote a piece Tuesday citing the plus-minus defensive metric I've used a few times as evidence of how poorly Plouffe is playing third base, and noted that his biggest problem is going to his right.
In Tuesday night's game, three balls went between Plouffe and the line. All were ruled hits, and one for sure I can't blame him for, but one in particular — the Brendan Ryan double that started the third inning rally — struck me as a playable ball. I think Plouffe's body language suggested he thought so also.
How Plouffe fares in what remains of the season matters as Terry Ryan and Co. draw up their plans for 2013. When he was hitting three homers a week, the Twins could live with the defense. Right now, he's not helping in either aspect.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
A step in the right direction
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| Seattle's Eric Thames trots around the bases after his eight-inning home run, the only run Liam Hendriks allowed — and one run too many. |
He's not going to be Felix Hernandez. His talent isn't at that level. But he can become something resembling a Brad Radke.
The Twins have yanked him up and down this season, and to be fair to the team's decision makers, he hasn't done well at the major league level.
Monday night he did do well — nine innings of three-hit, one-run ball, with three walks and six strikeouts. It was easily the best performance of his major league career to date.
Unfortunately for the Aussie, he was pitted against Hernandez, and Hernandez was better than he was. Which he should be, because Hernandez IS better. There aren't many as good as King Felix, and nobody who is certainly better.
One start does not vindicate Hendriks, and holding Seattle to a single tally isn't like doing the same to the Yankees or Texas. But it's something to build on. And with the minor league seasons winding down, there's no reason for him not to get the rest of the major league season to try to establish himself.
The single greatest problem of the 2012 Twins has been the starting rotation, and with an 0-7 record in 10 starts, Hendriks has been part of the problem. With his 9-3, 2.20 record in Triple A this year, he might be part of the solution too. But they're only going to find out if they let him pitch.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Pursuing a tangent: Trading Justin Morneau
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| Justin Morneau takes Saturday's home run around the bases. The first baseman is hitting .322/.368/.517 since the All-Star break. |
Dylan Hernandez, Dodgers beat writer for the Los Angeles Times, reported in an offhand reference on Saturday that the trade came together after "after a failed attempt to land Minnesota Twins first baseman Justin Morneau last week."
Hernandez did not detail that "failed attempt," and an inquiry into an August deal for Morneau could easily have failed because Morneau didn't make it through waivers. (Waivers go by league first, so if, any American League team claimed Morneau, the Twins couldn't trade him to the Dodgers.) Or the Twins could have had no interest in trading the former MVP.
That latter might be a mistake. The Boston-L.A. trade came as a surprise to many because the Dodgers were willing to take on almost all of some very large contracts (not only Gonzalez but Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford) AND surrender two significantly talented but unestablished pitchers in Rubby de la Rosa and Allen Webster.
Such trades are increasingly rare. Usually teams will give up that caliber of prospect only if the trading partner picks up most of the contract obligation.
Morneau himself would have been far cheaper than Gonzalez. Morneau is getting $14 million this year and $14 million in 2013, the final year of his contract; Gonzalez won't pull in less than $21 million in any season through 2018. And that comparison doesn't include the poison pills of Crawford and Beckett, owed a total of $133 million on their contracts.
There are three potential reasons for the Twins to trade Morneau:
- To free up payroll space;
- To open a position for Chris Parmelee;
- To upgrade pitching talent.
I suspected during the speculation leading to the trading deadline that any Morneau offers the Twins were getting met no more than two of those reasons, and perhaps only the second.
It's worth remembering that for most of July Morneau was hitting under .260 and had done almost nothing against left-handed pitching all season. Low-ball offers then were quite likely. (It's also worth remembering that Parmelee's assault on International League pitching this season wasn't quite as noteworthy as it appears today, partly because he had spent so much time sitting on the major league bench.)
Boil the issue down to this question: Would a trade of Morneau for Webster and de la Rosa fly?
I think the Dodgers would have done that last week; I think it would have made sense for the Twins as well. I also think the timing was wrong for it. Morneau's resurgence likely made it impossible to get him through waivers.
And I think that just because the Dodgers would have taken the contract and given the prospects doesn't mean other trading partners will do both. This could easily have been a unique opportunity.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Pic of the Week
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| Felix Hernandez pitches before stands filled with placards in his first start after his perfect game. |
Looks like he's surrounded by swarms of bumblebees.
The Mariners have a special section dubbed "The King's Court" in honor of Hernandez; attendees at his starts in that section get discounted seats, yellow T-shirts and the placards. For his start of Wednesday, the entire stadium was dubbed "The Supreme Court," and everybody got the placards and shirts.
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