Kyle Lohse's free-agency misadventures

We're on the cusp of a new year, and Kyle Lohse -- former Twins pitcher coming off the two best seasons of his career -- remains without a team.

Kyle Lohse went 30-11, 3.11
over the past two seasons for St. Louis.

He has multiple factors working against him. I'll list them in the order that I consider them significant, but any of them would logically discourage teams from pursuing him:

• Stat-savvy organizations will be particularly wary of his below-average strikeout rate (6.1 K/9 last season, 5.6 for his career) and his far-better-than-sustainable batting average on balls in play (.272 and .267 the past two seasons). Those stats mean he's a bad bet to continue pitching well.
• Because the St. Louis Cardinals made him a qualifying offer, the team that signs Lohse will lose a draft pick. More than that, it will lose the bonus budget allotted to that pick, which figures to limit its flexibility in signing draftees next summer.
• He's 34.
• Lohse's success is a creation of the Tony LaRussa-Dave Duncan patch-a-veteran pitching assembly line, and such pitchers have not generally fared well out of that environment.
• He is represented by Scott Boras. No bargains are available there.

The Twins probably weren't going to go after Lohse simply off their past history with him, but point two in the above listing is the real killer for them. In the Twins specific case, it would be the second-round pick that they'd lose -- and they're not at a point in the success cycle where it makes sense to surrender a high pick. Even contenders might think that regarding somebody with as many warning lights as Lohse.

The problem of draft-pick compensation dampening demand for specific free agents was supposed to have been fixed by the new labor agreement. The old system of free agent classification -- which resulted far too often in decent middle relievers being absurdly overvalued -- was abolished and replaced with the qualifying offer system.

Lohse is among a group of free agents to whom qualifying offers were made who might wish they'd accepted. They're good enough for their old team to have offered a $13 million one-year deal but not good enough to find real demand in the open market, at least not with the draft-pick penalty attached. Michael Bourn and Adam LaRoche also remain unsigned; Nick Swisher landed with Cleveland, a move I expect to look at in more detail in the next week or so. Suffice it to say for now that the Indians were hardly Swisher's desired destination.

The Sunday Funnies

Pie Traynor, the Hall of Fame third baseman, was reputed to be a mild-mannered man who seldom argued with the umpires and never used profane language. But one day the legendary Bill Klem, perhaps the greatest of umpires, threw Traynor out of a game.

The writers were astounded. And after the game, they sought an explanation from Klem for the ejection.

"He wasn't feeling well," Klem said.

"He looked OK before the game," a reporter replied.

"Well, he told me he was sick of my stupid decisions."

On stadium finance

Target Field's financing mechanism
has been working well so far.

The Star Tribune today has a story on how quickly the public debt on Target Field is being paid off.

Hennepin County, the paper reports, has prepaid $31.3 million — which will ultimately reduce the county's interest payments by more than $53 million.

The original plan was for the county to finish paying off its $350 million in bonds in 2037, but the story says that could happen five to 10 years sooner. Which would take out the 0.15 percent county sales tax that much earlier.

Revenues from that sales tax have been a bit lower than projected (because of the recession), but the interest on the bonds has been lower still (also because of the recession).

The Target Field financing mechanism always seemed sound to me -- a low but broad sales tax in the state's biggest retail jurisdiction. In comparison, the public financing scheme for the Vikings stadium -- which is supposed to come up with more money than Target Field required -- strikes me as too flimsy to be called a plan. Electronic pull tabs? Really?

I believe this: If something is worth having government do, it's worth taxing openly and honestly to do it. If it's not worth taxing openly and honestly, it's not worth doing.

The value in public financing for sports facilities is debatable at best. This, however, is not: Target Field has a plain, broad-based tax behind it. The Vikings stadium has a gimmick.

Contemplating Hideki Matsui

Hideki Matsui during the 2009 World Series, when he
went 8-for-13 with three home runs and was named
the MVP of the series. For his postseason career in the
states — 11 series, all with the Yankees — he hit
.312/.391/.541, which is strong hitting by any standard.

Hideki Matsui — "Godzilla" — announced his retirement Thursday.

In truth, his announcement was merely his acceptance of what the 30 teams had been telling him since August, when Tampa Bay released him. He's 38, he hit .147 for the Rays last season, he's done.

This is the way most players "retire" — passively. The Chipper Joneses, who get to select the time they leave, are the exception. Most players have retirement happen to them.

Matsui's departure is of particular interest because he has been the rare — to my knowledge, unique — Japanese hitter whose power translated to this side of the Pacific. The Japanese players who have brought their skills to the West have had varying degrees of success, but only Matsui's tool box included legitimate power.

Matsui hit 175 homers in the states in his 10 seasons here — 10 seasons spent largely in what is usually the decline phase of a career. How many homers he'd have hit had he spent his entire career in the Americas is unknowable, of course, but it hardly seems outrageous to guess that he might have doubled his total.

He did hit 332 homers in 10 years in Japan's highest leagues before coming to the States. His career was split between two worlds, and the numbers may not be an accurate guide to his ability. A good player, definitely. A great player, perhaps. I'm inclined to think so.

A thought on Lester Oliveros' camp invite

Lester Oliveros had
one appearance for
the Twins in 2012;
he had a combined
ERA of 2.42 in
Double A and
Triple A.

Many of the players coming to the Twins major league spring training are either assured a place on the 25-man roster (Joe Mauer, Glen Perkins) or have a legitimate shot at winning a job (Pedro Florimon, Tyler Robertson). Some are there to be seen by the major league staff, either for potential use in 2013 (P.J. Walters probably fits into this category) or for longer-term purposes (Alex Meyer and Trevor May)

And then there's Lester Oliveros.

Oliveros had Tommy John surgery in August. He's not going be on the Opening Day roster in Minnesota, or in Rochester or New Britain, for that matter. He has no chance of catching the pitching coach's eye in camp. But he has that coveted major league invite anyway. Which raises the question, why?

Start with the roster games the Twins played with him this offseason. Oliveros -- acquired in August 2011 in the Delmon Young trade -- had been on the 40-man roster. The Twins non-tendered him this offseason -- which got him off the 40 -- and then re-signed him to a minor league contract. This spares them the expense of having him on the major league disabled list (and paying him a major league salary) as he rehabs the surgically-repaired elbow.

I assume that Oliveros, who was briefly a free agent, was guaranteed the spring training invite as a lure to remain in the organization.

And I can think of two possible advantages for him to have that invite:

1. He'll get a bigger per diem while in major league camp.
2. He may well have greater access to the rehab facilities as a major league invitee than as a minor leaguer.

The extra per diem for Oliveros is a rounding error in the context of the Twins payroll, and it's a low price to keep one of their more advanced bullpen power arms around while he gets back into condition to unleash his fastball once again.

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.