Mark Dolenc and the New Britain outfield

Mark Dolenc in
his MSU days.

Mark Dolenc, who played his college ball at Minnesota State and was drafted by the Twins in the 15th round in 2006, was released this week. He was in his third season at Double A New Britain, was hitting a mere .168/.203/.204, and had struck out 40 times in 120 plate appearances. At age 27, he simply was no longer even a marginal prospect.

He was released to make room on the roster for Oswaldo Arcia, who was moved up from High A Fort Myers having hit .307/.376/.517 in a difficult hitting environment.

Arcia just turned 21 last month, but he's already on the 40-man roster, a status Dolenc never achieved, having made his debut in the Twins system at age 17.

Oswald Arcia has
hit at each level on
his risue up the ladder.

It's an interesting collection of outfielders on the New Britain roster at the moment. On their way up are Arcia, who is clearly a good prospect and Aaron Hicks, their first-round pick from 2008, who has not developed as rapidly as hoped but still regarded as a good prospect. And there are Joe Benson (on the disabled list) and Rene Tosoni, each of whom got some major league time last year, each of whom opened the season at Triple A and got demoted to Double A after hitting under .200 at Rochester, each of whom has had injury problems. And there's Evan Bigley, who is ... not as touted as any of the other four.

The Twins are noted for their patience with prospects, so I hardly expect them to pull the plug on Benson and Tosoni. But the two outfielders clearly have not enhanced their status this season, and Arcia certainly has.

A Mark Dolenc sighting

This image has nothing to do with
Mark Dolenc. I'm just fascinated by the
lines drawn by Hideki Okajima's
pitchng motion and captured by the
photographer. 

This is the portion of spring training when the Twins reach into their minor league camp each day and pull a handful of guys up to the major league camp for the day.

This gives Ron Gardenhire and company a brief glimpse of some of the younger prospects,  gives them a day or two in the home whites, and keeps the bench well-stocked  even as the starters come out of that day's exhibition game early.

It was at this point last year — the final week or so of Florida games — that Mark Dolenc, who pitched and played outfield for Minnesota State, Mankato, started popping up in box scores. And so it is again. Dolenc went two-for-two Saturday with a double and two RBIs as the Twins came back to beat the Red Sox and win the Mayor's Cup.

Dolenc is 4-for-4 this year playing with the big boys. Meaningless, but I'm sure it feels better than last years' 0-fer.

Here are Dolenc's minor league stats. I would anticipate that he's in line to repeat Double-A ball this season.

Local minor league notes

Jamie Hoffmann: Spring
training with the Yankees,
Triple A for the Dodgers

The NUN — New Ulm Native Jamie Hoffmann — never got back to the majors this season. The outfielder spent the year at Albuquerque, the Dodgers Triple A affiliate, where he hit .310/.369/431. Those numbers look better than they are, as Albuquerque's a great place to hit.

Tough year for the NUN. I thought he had a real shot to make the Yankees roster as a reserve outfielder after they arranged a Rule 5 draft-and-trade for him. But he wound up back with the Dodgers and never cracked their 40-man roster.
He's 26 now, and his window of opportunity may be closing.

Mark Dolenc, an outfielder out of MSU, spent the season in Double A New Britain for the Twins. New Britain had a terrible season, and Dolenc's numbers fell off from his High A stats of the year before. It is a tough place to hit, but almost nobody looks good on a 44-98 team.

Left-handed pitcher Clint Dempster, former MoonDog, signed with the Twins this summer as their 16th round pick. He pitched seven-plus innings at Elizabethton (Rookie ball) and 40 innings at Beloit (Low-A). His BB/K ratio in Beloit — 20 walks, 32 strikeouts — suggest that he has command issues to work on.

Alex Burgos, another MoonDogs lefty, spent his first professional season with the Tigers complex league team. Eleven innings at that level, even dominant innings — and the numbers are good — is pretty meaningless.

Twins sign Wimmers and local minor league notes

The deadline isn't particularly close, but Alex Wimmers signed Friday and is to report to Fort Myers to pitch for the Miracle, the Twins High-A team.

The right-hander out of Ohio State is viewed as a prototypical Twins pitcher — a strike-throwing machine, albeit with better stuff than a Nick Blackburn. (The better stuff is why he went 21st overall.)

According to Baseball America, the Twins have now signed their first 10 picks.

* The Twins' 16th-rounder, former MoonDog Clint Dempster, threw six shutout innings the other day Beloit (Low-A). The lefty is 2-2 for the Snappers with 4.00 era — and 14 walks in 18 innings.

I'm going to guess that fastball command is a priority for him.

* Mark Dolenc, a former MSU standout, is hitting .259/.305/.350 for New Britain, the Twins Double A affiliate. The Twins have a number of well-regarded outfield prospects there, including Ben Revere and Joe Benson, but Dolenc's getting plenty of playing time.

*The NUN, New Ulm Native Jamie Hoffmann, has spent the season at Albuquerque, the Dodgers' Triple A affiliate, and has a deceptively good .318/.377/.435 line. (It's a notoriously good place to hit.) He remains off the 40-man roster.

My encounter with Slovenian baseball

Geography class time. Yeah, I know — you came here looking for baseball. We'll get there. I promise.

The Republic of Slovenia, part of the former Yugoslavia, is a nation of more than 2 million people wedged in the mountains between Italy, Austria, Hungary, the Adriatic Sea and Croatia. It is not, so far as I can tell, a noted baseball hotbed.

There came last week into my inbox the following message:

Hi,

I was reading your notes about Twins outfielder Mark Dolenc. Coul you be so kind and tell me more about him, or, do you think he's going to make the Twins rooster this year, or ...

Kind of special request: Is it possible from you, to provide me his e-mail adress?

Best regards from Slovenia — EU,

Rok Lesjak

ZBSS media relations department

Now — I reproduce the e-mail with its misspellings and odd sentence structures with trepidation. I have no wish to ridicule Mr. Lesjak (I assume Rok is a masculine name; it sure looks like it to an English speaker). My attempts at Slovene would be far more pathetic.

I googled a Web site listed under the name and, with the wonders of Google's page translator, came up with this. And with another click of the mouse, a post to which I seem to be unable to link, titled "Mark Dolenc?"

The text must be easier to follow in the original, assuming one can read Slovene.

As best as I can tell: ESPN broadcast a Twins-Yankees exhibition game into Slovenia, where people involved in Slovenia Baseball and Softball took note of a player with a Slovene name — Dolenc. So they googled him, and found all the posts I've been doing about his spring training appearances.

And asked me for information about him, since I am apparently the ace of the Mark Dolenc beat.

I've sent an e-mail with some details of Dolenc's MSU career and biographical information, which isn't much. I suspect ZBSS is looking for a role model for Slovene athletes to interest them in baseball; Dolenc may not fit that bill perfectly. I don't know.

I just find the whole saga an interesting sample of this bizarrely ever-more interconnected world. Baseball in Slovenia? Who knew?

The Dolenc Watch continues

Yes, that apparently irrepressible former MSU outfielder Mark Dolenc played yet again in a Twins exhibition game on Wednesday. He went 0-for-3 and is still hitting .000 in his Grapefruit League playing time.

He came in for Denard Span when the big league CF took himself out of the game after lining a foul ball off his mom's collarbone. (That link includes video from the ESPN broadcast).

Dolenc won't get much more time on the major league side this spring, what with camp breaking today.

The Twins are back on ESPN this afternoon for their last Florida exhibition, but that broadcast conflicts with my 1 p.m. KTOE appearance. I'm sure you're all torn between my babble, a get-out-of-town game with the Red Sox and something potentially useful.

Dolenc and other notes

Mark Dolenc, the former MSU player who has been making random appearances in the Twins exhibition games the past few days, started Monday in a game televised by ESPN. He went 0-for-4.

I have my doubts that was the plan. Denard Span was reportedly to start in center field, but it was raining in Jupiter and they switched him to DH with Dolnec playing center.

Which makes sense. The Twins may not be thrilled with their options to fill Joe Nathan's slot, but they're even thinner for center fielders.

In more consequential developments less than a week from Opening Day:

• Joel Zumaya, the oft-injured flamethrowing reliever for Detroit, pitched on back-to-back days Sunday and Monday without immediately reporting for further surgery.
• Fausto Carmona — star in 2007, bum since — is impressing people in Cleveland's camp. This is a guy who has walked more men than he's struck out over the past two seasons, but he's apparently getting strikes with his sinker again.
• Mike Redmond is slated to be Carmona's personal catcher this year. Just speculating: Might this decision be based on the notion that some of the Minnesota strike-throwing magic can be transferred to Carmona through the ex-Twins catcher?
• Former Twins shortstop Cristian Guzman has been bounced as the starter in Washington in favor of rookie Ian Desmond.

The Dolenc watch

Mark Dolenc, the former MSU Maverick pitcher-outfielder now in the Twins system, got another line in a spring training box score Saturday, pinch running for Jason Kubel and scoring a run in the eighth inning, then finishing the game in right field.

Not exactly prime time, but better than being ignored.

The blogger talks back

A commenter on the Mahay post asks: Any thoughts on why the Twins seem unwilling to give Anthony Slama much of an opportunity to duplicate his AAA success?

I see three "issues" with putting Slama (photo left) on the 25-man roster.

First, his "AAA success" is limited — less than 16 innings. More important, his walk rates in the upper minors (Double A and Triple A) are higher than the Twins will accept (more than 4 walks per nine innings). (See his stats here.)

Second, Slama's stuff isn't overwhelming. Baseball America's 2010 Prospect Handbook grades his fastball and slider as average pitches.

A two-pitch pitcher with average stuff, uncertain control and limited experience in Triple A isn't knocking down the door.

Third, he's more of what the Twins have: A right-handed short reliever — and moreover, one whose success appears to be based in part on an odd delivery, comparable to Pat Neshek. Like Neshek, he's vulnerable to left-handed hitters. So he's redundant.

That said, he gets ground balls and strikeouts. (See the next item for more on those virtues.) He is, unlike most minor league relief pitchers, a bona fide prospect. I doubt he'll make the roster in April, unless there are more injuries in the 'pen, but he's got a real chance to come up later in the year, and especially in 2011.

A commenter on the Guerrier-Guardado comparison post asks: How much do strikeouts really matter to a closer, particularly one who will always enter at the beginning of the ninth inning?

Answer: A lot, because it matters to all pitchers.

Keeping it simple: The three true outcomes for a pitcher are walks (bad), home runs (bad) and strikeouts (good). Over time, for almost any pitcher, the batting average on balls in play is going to be around .320. The more strikeouts, the fewer balls in play, hence the fewer hits.

This is why power pitchers are a better bet than finesse pitchers, and why ground ball pitchers are better bets than fly ball pitchers. Power pitchers get strikeouts; finesse pitchers don't. Fly ball pitchers give up more home runs than ground ball pitchers. A ground ball pitcher who gets lots of strikeouts — Pedro Martinez in his prime — is ideal.

The two things I want to know about any pitcher are his K/9 rate and his BB/K ratio. I call those the leading indicator stats; they tell us how his stuff plays against hitters and how well he commands it.

An MSU alum gets a spring training appearance

Former MSU outfielder Mark Dolenc (left) was a one-day spring-training call up for the Twins on Wednesday and got a plate appearance subbing for Jason Kubel (he drew a walk).

The way this works: The Twins had about 60 players in major league camp when it opened — the 40 on the major league roster and a host of non-roster invitees. Minor league camp opened a couple weeks later, and the Twins have been shipping some of their excess players to minor league camp of late.

And now they're bringing guys over from the minor league camp for a day at a time; the guys who were in big-league came are ineligible for this. They get a uniform in the 90s with no name on the back, and they sub in late in the game.

The Twins took Dolenc in the 15th round in 2006 and he's worked his way up a level at a time. He spent last season in High A ball, and Seth Stohs this week included him on his projected Double A roster.

Dolenc has put up good stolen base numbers, displayed little power and has really poor walk/strikeout ratios. He looks like organizational filler at this point.