Notes from the Weekend

Well, that series in Kansas City should definitely put the Twins in seller mode. From Sunday morning's Twitter feed:

The Indians' chances to win the AL Central assessed at 99.6%: https://t.co/aW7oAjgFzc

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 22, 2018

All together now: So you're telling me there's a chance.

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Let us not dwell on a weekend in which the Twins received few breaks and deserved fewer. Let us move on to a process item rather than results. The Twins are beginning to experiment with Tampa Bay's "opener" tactic in the minor leagues. On Sunday, for example, Trevor May -- remember him? -- pitched the first inning for Rochester, and Zach Littell followed with 5.6 innings.

Thad Levine, the Twins' No. 2 in baseball ops, said on the radio pregame show that the front office has been following the Tampa Bay experiment and sees the advantage of having a "reliever" deal with the top of the opposing order in the first inning, allowing the pitcher who is expected to work the bulk of the game to get more outs before seeing the opposition's best bats a third time. (Levine also said Littell profiles as the type of pitcher the opener would probably benefit.)

I now take the risk of parsing Levine's comments too closely. Levine said the tactic has been discussed with manager Paul Molitor and pitching coach Gavin Alston. I infer that Molitor and Alston are cool to the idea of employing the opener in the majors.

Today's game would really be a good opportunity for it. Aldaberto Mejia, today's scheduled starter, is not an innings eater. (He appears to eat pretty much everything else, but that's another matter.) The hefty lefty made 21 starts last year for the Twins and got more than 15 outs (five innings) six times. He can use the help in getting deep into games.

Plus Toronto -- at least off a spot check of recent box scores -- load the top of the their lineup against lefty starters with righties and switch hitters.

It would make sense to have someone like Alan Busenitz pitch the first inning, then give way to Mejia for the middle and bottom of the order. Say Busenitz faces four batters, than Mejia faces the fifth man to start the second. That would also be the first guy to face him a third time, and he's got a better chance to work another inning than if he were facing the top of the order for the third time.

Of course, if Molitor and Alston were interested in trying the opener today, it wouldn't be Busenitz; he got sent back to Triple A after his inning Sunday to make room for Mejia. I really do not understand the organizational fascination with keeping Matt Belisle around to be a mopup man, but that's another problem.

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Ex-Twin watch: The Twins drafted Dereck Rodriguez, the son of Hall of Fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez, in the sixth round of the 2011 draft. He was an outfielder, but he didn't hit, and the Twins converted him to pitching in 2014.

He had his ups and downs on the mound in the Twins organization, and never made it on the 40-man roster. He left as a minor-league free agent after last season and signed with the San Francisco Giants.

And he's now in their major league rotation with a 5-1, 2.72 ERA after 10 appearances, eight starts.

San Francisco and the National League are a different environment than Minnesota and the American League, but I'd sure take that.

Notes, quotes and comment

Regarding the pursuit of Shohei Otani: There is currently no posting system for Japanese players to come to the American majors, and the MLBPA -- the players union -- is apparently deeply unhappy that as matters stand, Otani will get a pittance compared to what his Japanese team, the Nippon Ham Fighters, will get.

The union on Thursday set a Monday deadline for an agreement on the matter. If no deal on the posting system is struck by then, it will keep Otani from playing in the U.S. next season.

I'll believe that happens when I see it.

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Two of the players the Twins deleted from their 40-man roster since their season ended have signed with new organizations: utilityman Niko Goodrum with the Tigers, lefty relief specialist Ryan O'Rourke with the Orioles. And pitcher Dereck Rodriguez, son of Hall of Fame catcher Ivan Rodriguez, signed with the Giants as a minor league free agent.

The Twins have yet to add minor leaguers to their 40. The deadline to do so before the Rule 5 draft is Monday.

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The Twins' radio broadcasts are returning to WCCO.

I'm not sure how big a deal this is. 'CCO isn't what it once was, and certainly losing the Twins after the 2006 season was part of that, but radio simply isn't the kingpin of baseball broadcasting anymore.

Still ... Cory Provus laps the field in terms of the four main broadcast voices for this team, and having the games on the clear-channel giant again will make it easier to find the games when traveling in outstate Minnesota.

I suspect this means the Pohlads plan to unload their radio properties. I don't live in range of Twin Cities FM, and I'm certainly no expect on the radio biz, but I'm a bit baffled that they couldn't make a go of a baseball-based FM station.

On the minor league side, Part II

As lengthy as this morning's post was, it didn't exhaust the topic. (It merely exhausted me; I had to quit writing and go to bed.)

Here's some more ...

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When the Twins drafted a high school catcher named Brian Navarreto in the sixth round last June, I looked at the name and figured: Italian.

Nope. Black kid. Big (listed at 6-3, 220) and said by Baseball America to have the best power bat among the Twins draftees last summer — which isn't all that impressive, as the Twins spent most of their high picks on pitchers.

Still, Seth Stohs was telling me about a massive shot Navarreto hit that was ruled foul. Tom Kelly said, according to Seth, "That was too long anyway."

I watched Navarreto catch a couple of bullpen sessions. Presumably he's a bit raw behind the dish, but he seemed to move well.

He was working with the Cedar Rapids crew, but the catching assignments are particularly fluid; the most likely catchers in Triple A were still in the major league camp at that point, so there will be a downward flow of backstops as the Twins pare the numbers.

Navarreto spent last summer with the Twins GCL team, at the bottom of the ladder, and is probably more likely to be in Elizabethton than in CR this year.

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Tyler Grimes caught in CR last year. It was his third season in the Midwest League. But the first two were as a shortstop. Last year the Twins switched him to catcher, and he hit a little better overall than he had as an infielder.

He was drafted out of college, so it's not like he's got lots of time to dawdle in the low minors. I thought he looked pretty good behind the plate in the limited time I saw him last summer, and I rather expected him to be one of the extra catchers invited to major league camp this spring.

He wasn't.

Presumably he'll finally step up the ladder a notch to Fort Myers this year. By the end of last season, he was getting some infield time again, and I saw him playing third base in a game last week, so maybe he's ticketed for a multi-use role. Or maybe he's on his way out the door.

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One of the four non-roster catchers early in big league camp was Stuart Turner, the Twins' third-rounder last June. Turner draws raves for his defensive tools, but there's less certainty about his bat.

Turner spent last summer in Elizabethton, with one game in Double A (skipping two levels). I expect him to go to Cedar Rapids, where he figures to be handling a staff of great importance to the Twins future.

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The Twins drafted Dereck Rodriguez in the sixth round of the 2011 draft as an outfielder. The son of the catching great Pudge Rodriguez hasn't hit in three years of Rookie ball, so now he's converting to pitching. I didn't see him throw.

He's 21 now, and I wonder where they'll send him. Probably E-town again (where he played last year), but 21 is fairly old for the Appy League. But he's new to mound work, at least as a pro, and the Midwest League is probably too much of a reach for him.