Dissecting the Bill Smith Era: The Hardy-Hoey trade

J.J. Hardy was charged with 11 errors in 2010
with the Twins, six in 2011 with Baltimore.

When: Dec. 9, 2010
What: The Twins traded shortstop J.J. Hardy, infielder Brendan Harris and cash to Baltimore for right-handed pitchers Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson.
Value: Hardy is credited with 22 win shares and 4.1 WAR in 2011; Hoey with zero WS and -0.4 WAR. Neither Harris nor Jacobson played in the majors in 2011. Hardy, who turned 29 in August, signed a three-year deal with the Orioles during the 2011 season. Hoey was sold to Toronto this offseason in a waiver deal. Harris is a free agent. Jacobson remains in the Twins system.
Twins motivation: A combination of payroll cutting, adding velocity-oriented bullpen options and the belief that Hardy didn't fit Target Field/wasn't as good as his 2007-08 seasons indicate/was readily replaceable.

As with the Capps-Ramos trade discussed here last week, it would be difficult to make this deal turn out any worse for the Twins than it did in 2011.

Jim Hoey allowed
four homers in
24.2 innings in 2011.

Hoey indeed had a high-velocity fast ball. But he lacked a useful secondary pitch and command and movement on the fastball, which made him imminently hittable and, ultimately, not the successor to the LaTroy Hawkins-Jesse Crain line of middle-relief power arms.

And Hardy had the best offensive season of his rather inconsistent career.

Hardy had two good power seasons for Milwaukee in 2007-08, when he averaged 25 homers. But he fell off badly in 2009, and the Brewers traded him to make room for the younger, rangier and cheaper Alcedes Escobar (whom they later traded in the Zach Greinke deal). With the Twins, Hardy again didn't hit for the anticipated power (six homers) and was limited to 95 starts at shortstop in 2010, his sole season in Minnesota.

With Baltimore in 2011, he bopped 30 homers (and added 27 doubles). Zing!

One factor may be health. He had a hand injury early in the 2010 season and it was never fully healed. He implied last season that he had the same problem early in 2011 and the Orioles (unlike the Twins) medical staff was able to fix it.

Another factor may be ballparks. Home runs come easier in Camden Yards than in Target Field. And he plays more road games now in smaller yards, such as Fenway Park, than he did in the AL Central, where Detroit and Kansas City offer two other difficult places to hit long balls. He hit 15 homers home and road last season; in 2010, he hit one homer in Minnesota, five on the road.

What is Hardy's real level of offensive ability? He has in 2007-11 three seasons of 26, 24 and 30 homers; he also has seasons of 6 and 11. Much of his offensive value is in his power; he has one season in his career with an OBP above .330. If he ain't slugging, he ain't hitting -- and in the offseason of 2010-11, he hadn't slugged for two years.

So Hardy was -- like Ramos -- at a low point of value when the Twins moved him.

The Twins didn't trade him until they had the Tsuyoshi Nishioka deal essentially in place. They expected Nishi to fill one of the middle infield slots; that didn't work either. (I'll discuss the Nishioka deal in another post.) Misreading Nishioka's ability played a role in trading away Hardy.

Then there's this: With the giant Mauer contract about to kick in, the Twins had to get cheaper at other roster spots. Even with the jettisoning of most of the bullpen veterans and the departure of second baseman Orlando Hudson, they essentially needed to clear out one of Carl Pavano, Matt Capps, Delmon Young, Jason Kubel or Hardy.

They chose the one who had had the worst 2010 season. They also unloaded Brendan Harris, although I don't know that they saved much money on that (I think they gave the O's enough cash to pay for Harris' major-league deal).

Dissecting the Bill Smith era: The Young-Garza trade

Almost all of Delmon
Young's value with the
Twins came in 2010.

When: Nov. 28, 2007
What: The Twins sent RHP Matt Garza, SS Jason Bartlett and RHP Eduardo Morlan to Tampa Bay for RF Delmon Young, INF Brendan Harris and OF Jason Pridie.
Values: Garza has earned 44 win shares and 11.9 WAR (wins above replacement) since the trade; Bartlett 64 WS and 13.9 WAR; Morlan has yet to play in the majors. Young has earned 52 WS, 1.3 WAR; Harris 19 WS, -0.2 WAR; Pridie 4 WS, 0.3 WAR. The three players Tampa Bay received have earned 108 win shares and 25.8 wins above replacement since the trade; the three players the Twins got earned 75 WS, 1.4 WAR. None of the six remain with the same team.
Twins motivation: Plugging outfield holes.

When Bill Smith inherited the general manager's job in September 2007, he faced two large and obvious issues: The pending free agency of Torii Hunter and Johan Santana's walk year.

Connected to the Hunter issue was that the 2007 Twins had a gaping hole in left field. Since it was quite obvious that the Twins were not about to meet Hunter's price, Smith was looking at two vacancies in the 2008 outfield.

Young was an intriguing trade target -- young, strong, he had hit .288 and driven in 90-plus runs as a 21-year-old in 2007. He appeared fully capable of living up to his status as the No. 1 overall pick in 2003.

Garza was also a first-round draft pick with intriguing talent. The Twins had a surplus of young starting pitchers and a shortage of usable outfielders; Garza and Young were the obvious cornerstones of the trade.

Brendan Harris washed out as
a second baseman early in 2008
and spent his Twins tenure
shuffling between third base,
shortstop and the bench.

But Young was not only a former first pick but somewhat more accomplished in the majors already. The Rays needed something more -- and that something more turned the trade in their favor.

I have always believed, reading between the lines, that Ron Gardenhire was never sold on Bartlett as his shortstop. He was reluctant to play Bartlett and only installed him in the lineup in 2006 when then-GM Terry Ryan gave him no choice by dealing away veteran Juan Castro. In 2007, Bartlett committed a string of costly early-inning errors down the stretch that helped bury the Twins' final chances of getting back into the race.

It was the exchange of shortstops -- Bartlett for Harris -- that made this a plus trade for Tampa Bay. Garza for Young is even enough to justify given the needs of the Twins at the time; Pridie and Morlan are essentially irrelevant. But Harris' defensive deficiencies -- which were evident in the defensive metrics at the time -- kept him from becoming a regular with the Twins. And the Twins haven't had a 100-game shortstop season since dumping Bartlett.

Neither Young nor Garza have so far truly lived up to expectations. Both were traded within the past year, and there are reports that the Cubs are shopping Garza around.

J.J., we Hardy knew ye

J.J. Hardy did not display
the home run power
with the Twins that
he did in Milwaukee.

One year, 101 games, two disabled list stints and gone. The Twins got less out of James Jerry Hardy (,263/.320/.394 in 375 plate appearances) than they did out of Brendan Harris (.251/.309/.360 in 1,063 plate appearances), and now both infielders have been shipped to Baltimore with cash for a pair of pitchers who spent last season in the minors.

Jim Hoey was essentially rehabbing an injured shoulder; he's a hard-thrower with 34-plus major league innings on his resume in 2006 and '07; he missed 2008 with shoulder surgery; he has been in Double- and Triple-A throwing 100 innings and striking out 117. Brett Jacobson is another hard-thrower, age 24, who hasn't gotten out of high A ball yet; he's a project.

Couple this trade with the Rule 5 selection of left-handed pitcher Scott Diamond from the Braves system and the Twins are coming home from the Winter Meetings with

• Two candidates in Hoey and Diamond to restock their 2011 bullpen;
• An apparently nearly complete deal with Japansese infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka;
• A commitment to a faster middle infield in Alexi Casilla and Nishioka;
• A slimmer payroll (by roughly $7 million or so)

We don't know what the Twins will do with their savings. If, as LeVelle Neal suggests, it's re-signing Carl Pavano, I'll be rather dissatisfied with this activity. Pavano is a declining stock.

More Kubel, less Punto (maybe)

As generally expected, the Twins on Friday exercised their $5.25 million option on Jason Kubel and declined their $5 million option on Nick Punto.

Jason Kubel played 83
games in right field,
16 in left field in 2010.

The Twins may well be overpaying on Kubel. Certainly his 2010 numbers were disappointing (his slash stats were his worst since 2006), he shows no real sign of ever being a truly productive hitter against southpaws and he's never going to be a Gold Glove candidate in the outfield. But he's still on the good side of 30, retaining him leaves one less question mark to deal with in the offseason, and he convinced me that he's at least as capable in the outfield as Michael Cuddyer.

He certainly had fewer problems playing the right field wall at Target Field than Cuddy did.

The Punto situation is a bit more complex. As stated here before, there may (or may not) be a price at which the Twins want to keep Punto. It's pretty obvious that $5 million isn't it.

Nick Punto's 288 plate
appearances were his
fewest since 2004.

A lot depends on what the Twins want to do with their middle infield, and that depends in large part on (a) how big their payroll budget is and (b) how much of it they want to spend on relief pitching vs. middle infield. It would be a lot easier to re-sign Punto at $1.5 million with bonuses for at-bats (just picking a Punto-friendly number out of the air) if they hadn't already committed $1.75 million to Brendan Harris.

The Harris contract is wasted money; there's no market for a bat-first utility infielder who hit .157/.233/.213 in the bigs and .233 in Triple A. Even if the Twins go young and cheap in their middle infield in 2011 -- say with Alexi Casilla at second and Trevor Plouffe at short -- there may be no room for Punto as a reserve, with Matt Tolbert out of options and that money already committed to Harris. Still, it's a safe bet that Ron Gardenhire would rather have Punto than Harris.

For that matter, so would I.

Shuffling the roster

Photo above: Orlando Hudson figured he can't hit Yovani Gallardo with a bat, so he tried it without one.

The Twins get swept by the Brewers, and suddenly the Tigers are just a half-game back and the White Sox 2.5 back.

We can sum up Thursday's debacle thusly: Nick Blackburn (2010 ERA: 6.10) makes it easy to lose games, and Yovani Gallardo (12 strikeouts and no walks) made it impossible to win that game.

The TV boys started speculating about moving Blackburn to the bullpen to make room for Brian Duensing in the rotation. (Duensing had 3.1 shutout innings in relief Thursday, 47 pitches.) I have no idea if there's fire to that smoke, but 6.10 in late June is 6.10. Sidney Ponson didn't get this much rope.

And Brendan Harris finally got keelhauled, with the immortal Jason Repko called up. Repko isn't going to wedge his way into the lineup on a daily basis (I hope), but he is a legit center fielder and can't hit any worse than Harris has this season.

One thing this indicates is that Ron Gardenhire seems ever more intent on using Michael Cuddyer at third base. I am not enthused by that prospect. But this team isn't providing much reason to be enthused this week.

Imagining a trade

The idea with both Danny Valencia and Trevor Plouffe has been: If they're on the 25-man roster, they're playing.

So it struck me that Brendan Harris (above) was in the starting lineup both Saturday and Sunday, with Valencia on the bench. Not that Valencia has been incredible since he came up, but ...

Then the germ of an idea struck me.

Harris has a bit more than 1.5 years left on his contract with the Twins. Let's estimate he has $3 million coming on that.

Mike Lowell, the third-wheel third baseman of the Boston Red Sox, has a bit more than half the season left of his $12.5 million contract. Let's ballpark that as $7 million left.

The Twins aren't happy with their third base play. The Red Sox have had injury and depth issues in their middle infield all year.

Lowell and $4 million for Harris? Yeah, I think I'd do that if I were the Twins.

If I were the Red Sox ... well, I'd be curious about why Harris is hitting .160. Curious enough to want to scout him specifically.

Where the Twins showcasing Harris for a trade? Maybe. I'd feel more confident in this theory if he'd played one of those games at shortstop.

Dire straits in the Twins infield

That was quite the infield Ron Gardenhire started Saturday in Oakland:

• First base, Brendan Harris — slash stats entering play .163/.250/.228.
• Second base, Matt Tolbert (pictured) — .154/.154/.154
• Third base, Danny Valencia — .250/.250/.250
• Shortstop, Nick Punto — .202/.283/.260

Granting that Tolbert and Valencia had combined for just 21 major league plate appearances entering the game, it's a pretty grim state of affairs when Nick Punto is the slugger of the infield.

Behind such a makeshift alignment: Injuries, absences and weariness.

• Orlando Hudson, who the Twins had expected/hoped would be ready to return to the lineup in Oakland, isn't; I rather expect him to go on the disabled list Tuesday when Michael Cuddyer returns from the bereavement list.
• Justin Morneau needed a day off, and came a pinch-hitting appearance short of actually getting one.
• J.J. Hardy, who is just 5 for 38 since returning from the disabled list, was scratched with a sore wrist but wound up pinch-running for Morneau and scored the winning run.
• And Cuddyer, who has started games at first and second this season, is gone for his father-in-law's funeral.

That strange asemblage worked. Tolbert drove home the winning run. The infield played cleanly, with Harris making a savvy play to turn an off-target throw from Punto into a tag out. Valencia and Punto each had a single and a walk.

---

The winning rally featured an odd managerial decision: With the score tied, the bases empty and one out in the top of the ninth and Brad Ziegler pitching for Oakland, Morneau pinch-hit for Harris. Ziegler is a submarine righty vulnerable to left-handed hitters, and Morneau has been on a tear.

Oakland manager Bob Geren defied the convention that says you don't put the winning run on. He had Ziegler issue an intentional walk. Hardy ran for Morneau. Then Punto walked, putting runners on first and second. Denard Span grounded into a force play, moving Hardy to third, and Tolbert singled.

Counting Morneau, Ziegler had to face four straight left-handed hitters, two of them with the go-ahead run in scoring position; he got one of them out.

Late night: Mariners 7, Twins 1

Box score here. Game story here.

Before I get into Brendan Harris (above), a couple pitching notes.

This was the fourth time this season that Nick Blackburn failed to record even one strikeout in a start. He had one good outing doing that (May 9, seven shutout innings against Baltimore) and now three lousy ones. All told, in his zero-strikeout starts, he has allowed 15 runs in 22.6 innings — ERA of 5.96. I'm going to guess that's actually a pretty low ERA for games cherry-picked for a compete lack of domination.

Then there's Ron Mahay, who was broken out of his LOOGY role and asked to pitch a full inning. It didn't go well— two runs allowed — and his ERA in his last four outings has gone from perfection (0.00) to 6.73. That reflects nine earned runs in 3.3 IP.

He's still dominating lefties (.390 OPS) but the righties are killing him. He's definitely fallen behind both Brian Duensing and Jose Mijares in the bullpen pecking order.

---

As I surmised Tuesday morning, Harris got the start against Jason Vargas. The result was another 0-fer. He's now hitting .163. He can't be that bad, but he didn't have a well-struck ball, even with all four at-bats coming against lefties. I wonder if he'll start against Cliff Lee tonight, or if Matt Tolbert will get the call.

But what really struck me came before the game, when the lineup had Nick Punto playing second and Harris third.

Remember: Ron Gardenhire doesn't like moving his regulars from one position to another. He has resisted moving Punto off third base this year; when J.J. Hardy was out, Gardenhire played other infielders at short — Harris, Alexi Castilla, Trevor Plouffe— but not Punto. On Monday, he put Michael Cuddyer at second and left Punto at third, even though second base is the more important defensive spot and even though Cuddyer has spent more time in his career at third base than at second.

But on Tuesday, there was Punto at second and Harris at third. Which tells me a lot about how Gardenhire rates Harris as a second baseman. He'd rather play an outfielder there.

Harris did make a couple of nice plays at third base.

The dirt flying off the ball in the above photo reminds me of the stories told of Honus Wagner, the greatest shortstop ever, who had huge hands and was said to scoop up infield dirt along with the ball and fling the whole mess at the first baseman. This might be the only time Harris is compared to Wagner.

Casilla out, Tolbert in

After last night's game, the Twins put Alexi Casilla (pictured) on the disabled list and recalled Matt Tolbert.

Tolbert figures to play the same role as Casilla, which is to say not much of one at all. Pinch-running, occasional defensive work when one of the regular infielders is out — which is the case today, with Orlando Hudson's immediate status uncertain.

At this point, I'd rather not see Brendan Harris playing at all, although I expect he'll get a start today, as Seattle's got a left-hander scheduled to start. Harris is in the major leagues largely because his career batting average vs. LHP is .289. But he's just 2 for 22 over the past two weeks, and he's hit lefties worse than righties so far this season.

That shouldn't continue forever, but he looks like a mess at the plate right now. Still, if he doesn't play against Jason Vargas, I don't know how the Twins justify his roster spot.

Harris' slump makes this a particularly bad time for Casilla to go on the shelf. He's actually looked fairly competent at the plate so far in his limited opportunities — his OPB is .370 — and I was struck by his three-walk performance May 22 against Milwaukee. Three walks in a game isn't something that just happens.

A healthy Casilla might have gotten more opportunities.

The bench shuffle

The Twins finally stuck Nick Punto on the DL Friday. Why not? He's only been out about a week. Man hit the ball high off the left field fence one day and hasn't played since.

Luke Hughes (left) got the call. He's from Australia, reputed to be a pretty good right-handed hitter. The Twins have deployed him all over the field in the minors trying to find a place he fits in. A little short with the glove in the middle infield, a bit light on power for the outfield. He's been playing second so far in Triple A.

Jim Thome has been a more effective hitter so far than I expected, but his presence — combined with the 12-man pitching staff — really shortens the bench, especially if they're nursing a day-to-day-injury (such as Punto's) along.

Four bench players: Thome, Drew Butera, Alexi Casilla and now Hughes. Thome has no position. Butera is limited to catcher. Which means that for almost a week, Casilla was backing up seven positions. Hughes has more OF experience than Casilla does, not that I expect him to get much PT out there.

Meanwhile Brendan Harris is hitting .176. I wouldn't be surprised if Hughes gets a start at third base this weekend.

---

Jack Morris, doing some radio fill-in work during the homestand, was puzzled by the defense used against Thome — a sharply shifted infield, with three men on the right side on second, but the outfield playing straight away.

Morris' bewilderment leads me to suspect he doesn't pay much attention to the games when he's not working. Thome seldom hits grounders to the left side but actually hits more fly balls to left than to right.

The defensive positioning isn't random or whimsical.

Avoiding arbitration

Lots of signings Tuesday by the Twins. They had eight arbitration cases pending and wiped the slate clean.

Because all eight were already under team control, the deals are mainly of interest to their employer, who now know exactly how much they're paying these guys, and to their accountants.

Tuesday was the day to exchange arbitration figures, and there were a lot of signings all over baseball. It appears that everybody's got a pretty good handle on where the arbitration ruling was likely to go, and if they have that figured out, it's easy to settle.

Some of the Twins deals are complex enough that they were clearly being work on a while. Francisco Liriano, for example, has incentives both as a starter and as a reliever. Brendan Harris got a two-year contract —which make his the worst contract on the roster, except that it's not a huge amount (for baseball. Me, I'd be able to retire on it).

And J.J. Hardy's contract is essentially what Orlando Cabrera got last season, which was too low for O-Cab's liking. Cabrera's still available; he's overestimated his market again, it appears.

In-Crede-ble

The word Tuesday night about Joe Crede's back, twice surgically repaired, was vague but ominous: There have been post-surgical changes.

What those changes are isn't specified, but they can't be good. He wouldn't have gotten the MRI Tuesday had his back been flexible and pain free.

So: He's hurting, and the MRI indicates that the back structure is different than it was after the surgery.

I'm not surprised. As a man who has had a herniated disk, I have kept an eye on Crede, and I believed much of the season that his flexibility was limited. It was most noticeable on ground balls to his backhand side — he was frequently a tick late, and displaying body language that suggested he knew he should have reached the ball. That's the move, defensively, that puts the most twist on the back.

At risk of jumping to conclusions, I assume he's done for the season, maybe even done for his career.

The Twins, as I wrote in the Monday print column soon after Crede signed, have options. The Brian Buscher-Brendan Harris platoon the Twins used at third in the second half of 2008 figured last winter to be just as productive offensively as Crede — and, given how poorly Crede hit, might have been better at the dish.

As Plan Bs go, Buscher and Brendan isn't Bad.

But there's a Plan C that might tempt the Twins. Danny Valencia is supposed to inherit the third base job next spring. They might chose to hasten that timeline.

But I think Harris/Buscher makes more sense. Alexi Casilla appears to have secured the second base job (at least until his next brain cramp); combined with the presence of Orlando Cabrera at short, that makes Nick Punto the utility man, and makes it easy to use Harris and Buscher and, yes, Punto to cover third. Harris against left-handed starters, Buscher agaisnt right-handed starters, Punto for defense.

Brendan Harris, (not a) shortstop

About a month ago, when Nick Punto was on the shelf and the Twins were on the road in Oakland, there was a late night game in which Brendan Harris played a one-hopper off his chest. The official scorer called it a single, which might have been a sensible ruling had Harris been playing bare handed.

A few innings later, Harris made a lunging backhanded stop of a grounder and threw to the third baseman for a force out.

In the game story the next day, Ron Gardenhire said of Harris, "He played the hell out of the position." I am 99.9 percent sure that Gardy was thinking of the backhanded play and forgetting the ball that bounced off his chest.

Harris has been a fixture at shortstop since. The line is that he's more comfortable at short than at second (OK) and Punto can handle either position. And, even considering that Harris is now 2-for-27 this month — a sweet .074 batting average over seven games — there's no question that he's a better hitter than Matt Tolbert, the other middle infield option currently on the 25-man roster.

But he's no shortstop, at least not a major league-caliber shortstop.

Defensive stats are odd things. They often seem designed to hide the truth. Part of it is that there are going to be 27 outs made, no matter how many hits go through a rangeless or ill-positioned defender. Part of it is the subjective nature of scoring calls. For example, in the second inning Wednesday night, Harris made a play behind second base, did one of those pivots to get into the proper throwing angle — and overshot Justin Morneau, pulling him off the bag.

Single. Yeah, right. It was a play a major league shortstop in 2009 is expected to make.

The Yankees scored three runs that inning. If Harris makes that play, gets that out, they score zero. And, of course, the Twins lost 4-3.

I counted three plays that night Harris (in my judgment) should have made and did not. One of them was ruled an error. Just one.

The next time you hear John Gordon extolling the wonders of the Twins defense on the basis that they con't commit errors, remember that "hit."

Disposing of a trade rumor

Buster Olney writes on ESPN.com of potential trade partners with the Atlanta Braves, the core concept here being that the Braves are willing to deal shortstop Yunel Escobar for an outfield bat.

One of the teams mentioned is Minnesota:

Escobar would be perfect for the Twins in many respects, and Minnesota has an array of outfielders to choose from, whether it be Michael Cuddyer or Denard Span; Delmon Young is hitting .264 with three homers, and it's hard to imagine that the Braves would seriously consider him in any trade. But the Twins' focus is on relief pitching, and an aggressive midseason deal really doesn't fit their style — and if Escobar's conduct in Atlanta has turned off the Braves' coaching staff, then this is certainly not the type of thing that the Twins would go for. Span is an interesting name, though, because his service time (and salary) is close to that of Escobar, and he is widely seen as a player on the rise.

The possibility that the Twins would deal Span for a shortstop exhibiting attitude problems is slim to none. Not only because they value Span, and not only because they don't put up with such behavior, but because they'd likely rather acquire a second baseman than a shortstop.

Brendan Harris' (photo above) stats have plummeted in the past few days — he's 1-for 15 in July — but Ron Gardenhire finds him acceptable at short and unacceptable at second. Get a second baseman, and the Twins would probably find some way of time-sharing short between Harris and Nick Punto. Get a shortstop, and Harris becomes almost useless.

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Some comments on Saturday's game:

*It was an odd sentence about Francisco Liriano in the AP's game story: "He intentionally threw a lot of first-pitch strikes, which ultimately hurt him in the seventh."

He should intentionally throw a lot of first-pitch strikes. The best pitch in baseball is the first-pitch strike. It's called getting ahead of the hitters.

Liriano faced 27 men and threw 18 first-pitch strikes. He threw, in total, 103 pitches, 65 strikes, 38 balls — not quite the preferred 2-1 ratio, but closer than he often is.

A good game for Liriano.

* Magglio Ordonez has just 14 extra base hits this year. Three of them have come against the Twins.

* Jose Morales failed twice to get down the bunt in the bottom of the eighth inning (bad). Then he hit a slow roller that moved Matt Tolbert to second (good) and was applauding himself as he crossed first base. Moral equivalent of a sac bunt.

Nothing against Mike Redmond, but I'm increasingly ready for the Jose Morales era at backup catcher.

* The game stories (AP and elsewhere) make mention of it, but let me join in: That was some good baserunning by Tolbert to score the winning run.