Whittling the outfielders

Ryan Sweeney was
a second-round pick out
of Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
by the White Sox in
2003.

The Twins trimmed their camp roster to 35 Friday by optioning out Max Kepler and releasing Ryan Sweeney, both left-handed hitting outfielders.

These are two players at opposites in their careers. The much-anticipated Kepler is a future regular, if not a future star; he was never going to make this team as a bench piece. The graceful German did well to last this deeply into camp. Next year, he sticks. (He'll be out of options.)

Sweeney is about eight years older than Kepler, and his days as a regular are in the past. His goal is to be a bench piece, and he appears to have a grasp of reality; he sounded grateful to be cut loose at this point because he has 10 days to find another team before the start of the season. The Twins simply have too many outfielders who are younger, stronger and faster than Sweeney.

Sweeney would have had a better chance 30 years ago, when teams carried just 10 pitchers. The Twins are likely to have just one full-time outfielder on their bench. I figure the four extra position players will be John Ryan Murphy (catcher), Eduardo Nunez (infielder), Oswaldo Arcia (outfielder) and Danny Santana (infielder-outfielder).

That would also leave Darin Mastroianni and Carlos Quentin off the roster. While I could make a case for Mastroianni as a defensive specialist, I have a difficult time seeing how Quentin fits on the current roster. He can hit, but that's all he can do to help, and the DH slot is well-occupied.

Outfield options:The minor league invitees

Last spring Shane Robinson made the Opening Day roster as a non-roster invitee to spring training and stuck all season. He's going to try to do the same thing with Cleveland in 2016. 

Meanwhile, the Twins have a handful of outfield hopefuls coming to camp as non-roster guys, including former Twins Joe Benson and Darin Mastroianni, plus veteran Ryan Sweeney.

Sweeney is a former second-round draft pick out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who has nine seasons in the majors on his resume. The Cubs released him on April 7 last year, eating $2 million on his contract, and he didn't play anywhere after that. He's a left-handed hitter with some size, 31 in February, who has gotten a considerable amount of his playing time in center. He has the resume and profile of an established fourth outfielder, but his absence from the game last year is a red flag. It's not so much that the Cubs dropped him; with all their young talent, that was explicable. That nobody else picked him up makes me wonder. Still, if one of these NRIs makes the team, Sweeney's my bet.

Benson I discussed in a previous post. Nothing's happened since to change that assessment. 

Mastroianni spent 2015 in the minors, starting in the Phillies system, then moving to the Nationals. His Twins tenure was marred by a foot-ankle injury that took the edge off his best tool, his speed. 

All three of these guys face the same significant obstacle: lack of opportunity. The Twins have a corps of talented young outfielders at or neat the big league level, and some of them (Oswaldo Arcia and Danny Santana) are out of options. That, I'm sure, is why Robinson is trying his luck elsewhere. This figures to be a tough nut for a non-roster guy to crack.