Spring training trip: Final day

Lance Lynn had his introductory press conference in the morning. In the afternoon, he threw three hitless innings inhis first exhibition start. He was clearly laboring in that third and final inning.

As advertised, Lynn threw mostly fast balls, and the stadium gun had him at 93 and 94 mph repeatedly.

That was the good news on the pitching front in the exhibition The bad news: Fernando Rodney, Trevor Hildenberger and Taylor Rogers -- three key relievers -- all gave up runs, with Hildenberger and Rogers each surrendering homers.

For what it's worth:

Molitor said he's "not overly concerned" about rocky springs for Hildy and Rogers.

— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) March 13, 2018

---

Miguel Sano played third and made two plays that required him to move with no problem. I'm inclined to regard the concern about his mobility following his stress reaction surgery as overblown.

---

We're headed home this morning. The locals grumbled the entire time we were here about how cold it was. It was still pretty warn for March to a Minnesotan.

Spring training trip: Day Two

After Saturday's rain out, my wife surprised me by suggesting that we go to Port Charlotte on Sunday to see the Twins play the Rays there. Which we did.

Miguel Sano played third base, drove in a pair of runs with a hard-hit single in a five-run inning, and had little opportunity to field his position. I thought he might have reacted a tad slowly on one base hit to his left, but I doubt the ball was playable from where he was stationed.

Much has been made this spring of Sano's weight and conditioning. Looking at him in his uniform, he doesn't look rotund. He is just a big man. I haven't had an opportunity to gauge his mobility, but in an earlier game he made one of his specialty charge-a-slow-roller plays with no issue.

He has yet to play two days in a row, but that's probably not unique at this stage of training camp. I'm not sure Brian Dozier has either, and no middle-aged (or older) paunchy columnist is yelling about him.

I do expect MLB to suspend Sano over the sexual assault allegation that emerged this winter. I won't hazard a guess as to how long that suspension might be. I see no reason to believe that he'll be on the disabled list when opening day arrives later this month.

---

One notable difference between the Twins camp and the Rays camp: Fans are free to wander over to the minor league fields at the Twins Fort Myers complex. The back fields at the Rays camp were closed off Sunday.

Charlotte Sports Park itself is a nice facility. In my (probably biased) opinion it's not quite as good as Hammond Stadium, but it's rather comperable. Both stadiums are home to teams in the High-A Florida State League; in Port Charlotte it's the Charlotte Stone Crabs, affilate of the Rays.

One advantage to the Charlotte park is the team store, which has caps and shirts for the minor league tenant during spring training. Hammond Stadium's store is, at least during spring training, devoted to Twins items, nothing of the Miracle.

Spring training trip: Day One

Officially, Saturday's exhibition game didn't happen. The Twins scored nine runs in the first inning, and they all went away when the game was called in the third inning. Which happened a few minutes after I decided we'd been rained on long enough and we left the park. The game was probably called as I was trying to turn left out of the parking area onto Three Cypress Road  Six Mile Cypress.

The big news broke sometime after the game: The Twins have a one-year deal with free-agent pitcher Lance Lynn, pending a physical.

A low-priced, short-term contract (one-year, $12 million) was certainly not what Lynn was expecting out of his free agency, but as with Logan Morrison, the Twins got themselves a bargain with a spring training signing.

The addition of Lynn almost certainly ends the rotation battle. There's Lynn, Jake Odorizzi, Jose Berrios and Kyle Gibson to start the season, with Ervin Santana added around the end of April. There's not a Cy Young favorite in that bunch, but if Kyle Gibson is your No. 5 starter, your rotation is pretty darn solid. Phil Hughes, Anibal Sanchez and Aldaberto Mejia are destined for the bullpen or off the roster.

A few other random observations from Saturday:

* Mitch Garver, the frontrunner for the backup catcher job, played left field.

He played it ... cautiously. Which makes sense; he's out of position, and the field was wet and the ball undoubtably slippery. There was a liner hit his direction that I thought was catchable, but Garver made no real effort to come in on it and conceded the single. Again, it was sensible; the Twins had a nine-run lead, and let's just not screw things up.

The fourth outfielder slot is not guaranteed to Robbie Grossman, who has his own defensive shortcomings. Paul Molitor may be looking for a right-handed hitter he can feel comfortable with in the outfield. I don't think Garver fits that bill.

* I watched Miguel Sano, Kennys Vargas and a few others who weren't slated to play take batting practice on a side field. Everybody opened BP with the traditional two bunts, including the two big men. Vargas actually appeared to take his second bunt seriously, laying it down toward third and taking off for first base out of the left-handed batters box. The way teams shift him, it makes sense for him to work on that bunt.

* Kyle Gibson allowed a lot of baserunners but also got two double plays, one of which he started himself. I no longer have high expectations for Gibson, but I do think he's one of the better fielding pitchers the Twins have had in the past decade or so.

* I was favorably impressed with the new barbeque stand at Hammond Stadium.

A trip to Fort Myers: Scenes from Jet Blue Park

The Boston Red Sox opened their own state-of-the-art spring training complex in Fort Myers four years ago. The opening of Jet Blue Park and its accompanying amenities triggered a clause in the Twins contract with Lee County that resulted in a multi-year series of upgrades to their complex.

This year marked the first time I'd been to Jet Blue, and while photography was deliberately downplayed as part of our travel plans, we did get some photos that might give some of the flavor of "Fenway South" -- so-called because the park's dimensions were shaped to mimic the antique Boston yard. A few photos, several if not most taken by my wife, Linda Vanderwerf:

Ed sits on a bench with a representation of
the Red Sox mascot, Wally the Green Monster.

The cantilevered roof at Jet Blue was designed, according
to our usher, to resist hurricane winds.

A more detailed shot of the roof and its
angles.

Jet Blue's version of the Green Monster. Note the man
on the stepladder changing a digit on the scoreboard.
He lugs the ladder out for each run and at the end of
each inning to make the changes.

A numeric sculpture garden outside the
admittance space displays the Red Sox'
honored numbers. No. 9 is for Ted Williams.

Also outside the ticketed space:
This larger-than-life depiction
of Teddy Ballgame.

A few other observations:

The "concourse" at Jet Blue is outside the park itself; tented food and drink stands line the exterior. Among the offerings that aren't available at the Twins yard are lobster rolls and a shrimp salad roll. But no bratwurst; they're catering to the tastes of New Englanders, not Midwesterners. (They do have a marvelous frozen lemonade.)

Jet Blue does not host a team in the Florida State League. The Fort Myers Miracle, which plays at Hammond Stadium, is affiliated with the Twins and has been for decades. The Sox' High-A affilate is in the Carolina League. The Sox do have a team in the very low-level Gulf Coast League, a so-called complex league; GCL games are typically played on the back fields. So Jet Blue, once spring training ends, is basically used as a concert venue.

A trip to Fort Myers: Beach day

The Twins hit the road Friday (playing to a 2-2 tie with the Pirates), and the wife and I had our usual day on Sanibel Island. It was a baseball-free day.

More or less. I did eye the Twins lineup for the game in Bradenton, and noted that Danny Santana was slated to start at third base.

Friday was the third spring game for the Twins, and the third game in which Santana appeared -- and at four different positions. He took over center field when Byron Buxton left the first game and was the sub for Miguel Sano in right in the second game (in which Santana homered). And on Friday he started at third and moved to second later in the game, playing all nine innings.

Quite a difference from last spring, when the Twins pretended that there was a shortstop competition between Santana and Eduardo Escobar. The competition was, in truth, merely lip service; Santana was never used in spring training other than at shortstop. As things turned out, Santana neither hit nor fielded competently during the regular season. This spring, Escobar is ensconced as the shortstop, and Santana -- who is out of options -- has to make the team as a utility guy.

Oh, he may be Plan B for center field. Or maybe Max Kepler is. But Byron Buxton is Plan A, and one aspect of the Twins bench this year figures to be the need for a fourth outfielder who can be used not only as a backup in center field but as a defensive substitute for Miguel Sano in right.

Figure that the Twins will open the season with 12 pitchers. That leaves room on the roster for 13 position players, nine of them regulars (including the DH)  and four as reserves. One of the four, obviously, will be the second catcher. If Santana is capable of being both the backup middle infielder and the glove-oriented fourth outfielder, it would open up a lot of other possibilities.

A trip to Fort Myers: Game 1's outfielders

My seat for Wednesday's Twins exhibition opener were in the right-field bleachers of JetBlue Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.

Drawing conclusions from the first game of spring training is a fool's errand, of course. Evaluating a hitter from some 500 feet away from home plate is also foolishness. Still, one can't help but note that Byung Ho Park struck out in all three of his plate appearances, while Miguel Sano walked all three of his,

If I had poor seats for watching the hitters, I had a pretty good location to watch Sano play right field. The only problem was, the ball never found him. The closest he came to touching the ball was a fly to right center that Byron Buxton gobbled up. Sano broke well on that ball, but Buxton had it easily.

The Twins started Oswaldo Arcia in left, Buxton in center and Sano in right. They left the game en masse about halfway through, and the Twins had Darrin Mastroianni in left, Danny Santana in center and Max Kepler in right. There are three center fielders in that second outfield, but none of them are close to Buxton.

Buxton fanned his first two trips, then singled home the first run of the game before giving way to Santana. I've said this before; his defensive abilities alone make Buxton the obvious choice for center field -- all the more so if Sano is going to be in one of the corners.

Notes, quotes and comment

Korean import Byung Ho Park
strikes a pose during Media Day
on Tuesday at the Twins
spring training complex.

I'm in Fort Myers now despite multiple brain cramps en route, and I'll be at JetBlue Park, the "Fenway South" home of the Red Sox, for the Twins' exhibition opener today. I've not been there on my previous trips to southwest Florida, and I'm looking forward to it.

The lineup the Twins are bringing to the crosstown contest features players I'm particularly interested in seeing: Byron Buxton in center, Miguel Sano in right, Byung Ho Park at DH, John Ryan Murphy behind the plate. These are four guys the Twins really need to see come through. On the noumd, it's Phil Hughes starting with Trevor May "piggybacking."

---

Aroldis Chapman, star reliever now with the New York Yankees, got a 30-game suspension out of his domestic incident case. That's not long enough to keep him from free agency after the season, but it's also shorter than a PED suspension. Craig Calcaterra reasonably suggests that this was effectively a plea bargain, especially considering that Chapman agreed not to appeal the ruling.

So a precedent of sorts is set. Nobody was injured and there were no charges filed in the Chapman incident, but he did fire a gun. We'll see what happens in other cases, including the pending Jose Reyes case involving the Colorado shortstop.

--

The Kansas City Royals signed Salvador Perez to a contract extension through 2021. I wonder if the Royals will ease up on their use of him now that they're committed to him for another five years.

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 ...

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

On the minor league side

Tom Kelly and Doug Mientkiewciz confer during
an infield drill with the High A squad of the moment.

Disclaimer: This is far from a real-time report. I spent three mornings last week / early this week wandering around the minor league fields watching, photographing and thinking about the Twins prospects and the process of turning them into (in some cases) major league players.

Only now am I getting around to writing about it.

---

There's a color code to the minor league side.

The players wear gray uniform pants and navy shirts with red numbers and their name on the back. The managers, coaches and instructors wear the home white pinstriped uniforms; Doug Mientkiewicz wears his old 16, even though on the major league side that's Josh Willingham, and Tommy Watkins wears the 61 he had during his one cup of coffee, even though that's now Jared Burton on the big team.

Big league players sent over for some action on the back fields wear the navy and gray, but with a slight difference: The numerals are white, and there's no name on the back.

This all makes the authority figures easily recognizable. A novice in camp may not know Jeff Smith (Double A manager) from Gary Lucas (High A pitching coach), but he knows if a guy in white tells him to run a lap, he's running a lap.

The one exception to this: Tom Kelly. The former manager wears the major league version of the navy jersey, and he floats from field to field, dodging fans and materializing next to whoever is running the drills on a particular field, leaning on his fungo bat and taking everything in, then moving on to another field.

And then he'll take a handful of infielders to the half field and start hitting grounders and critiquing their glove work.

---

Levi Michael, the Twins' first round pick in 2011, has had a difficult time of it in pro ball so far. The college infielder debuted in High A ball in 2012 and hasn't budged. Last year he hit a disappointing .229/.331/.340 at Fort Myers.

When I saw him, all he was doing was trotting at half speed (if that) during warmup exercises. Apparently he'd injured his hamstring just before I arrived in town.

---

Jorge Polanco is on the 40-man roster and was in major league camp but was one of the earliest cuts. No surprise; the Dominican infielder is still only 20 and spent last year in Low A. 

The general consensus is that he's a second baseman, but every time I saw him working in the field he was at shortstop. Sam Perlozzo, the former Baltimore Orioles manager who inherited Paul Molitor's role as a baserunning and infield instructor, seems to have Polanco as a special project. Perlozzo at one point had Polanco and fellow Dominican infielder Aderlin Mejia on a half field working on double play pivots, with Polanco at short and Mejia at second.

Polanco has some promise as a hitter -- very good walk-strikeout rates, strong batting averages and enough pop for a middle infielder -- but I wonder if the Twins might be trying too hard on the shortstop thing.

On the other hand, it seem universal: Any shortstop who is a plus at the plate at some point is "accused" of not being adept enough defensively. 

---

I tended to gravitate to the bullpen sessions. At one point J.O. Berrios took the mound, with Bo Altobelli handling the catching chores.

Altobelli finished last season with Cedar Rapids, and Berrios spent the full season there. But when Berrios snapped off a breaking ball early in the session, it seemed to startle the catcher. He lunged right, gloved the ball and muttered, "oh, wow."

Alex Meyer throws in the bullpen.

Alex Meyer, the top pitching prospect in the organization, threw a few balls from the mound in a very light session. Still, it wasn't difficult to see that he has imposing stuff.

Ryan Eades, last summer's second round pick, had been restricted from throwing. but kept trying to sneak onto the mound. Ivan Arteaga, who'll be the pitching coach at Cedar Rapids this year, kept chasing him off, but Eades did get a few throws in.

I noted that Eades was grouped with the Cedar Rapids pitchers, while Aaron Sledgers, last summer's fifth round pick, was a level higher. Such groupings are fluid in spring training, but it's still interesting that Sledgers seems right now to be ahead of Eades. (Both were drafted out of college.)

---

Travis Harrison, a third baseman so far in his career, is apparently now ticketed for the outfield. Off what I saw in a few games at Cedar Rapids, that makes sense. He didn't show much on defense at the hot corner.

---

Alex Wimmers walks down "Mount Perry"
after running up its steepest slope.

Alex Wimmers, the Twins first round pick in 2010, has just 77.1 professional innings so far. All I saw from him was some workouts on "Mount Perry," the new exercise hill, but the word was that he was healthy (for once) and displaying the plus changeup that made him a first-rounder. I'm not counting on him, and I doubt the Twins are either, but it would be nice to have something go right with him for once.

---

I saw B.J. Hermsen, the organization's pitcher of the year in 2012, pitch for the Double A team against the Triple A team (and Pedro Florimon, visiting from the major league side as he tested his abdomen after his appendectomy). Hermsen did not fare well at all.

In 2012, Hermsen went 11-6, 3.22 in 130 innings in Double A. He returned to New Britain last year and went 1-10, 4.81 in 86 innings. After watching him get smacked around in that game, I don't hold much optimism for him.

Spring training trip: Coming home

All good things must end, and by the time this posts my wife and I should (Delta and the weather permitting) be wheels up and on the way back to Minnesota.

I plan some more posts out of this journey, with a bit more emphasis on the photos. That will await more time with the 200-plus photos we took.

Among the coming commentary: My take on the continuing renovation project at Hammond Stadium and the Twins complex and some chatter about what I saw on the minor league fields over the course of three mornings.

But first, packing and the flight. And a return to the real job.

Spring training trip, Day 4: The position battles

Aaron Hicks prepares to hit during
a minor league game Sunday morning.

The Twins cut eight more players Sunday morning, most prominently shortstop prospect Danny Santana. Santana muffed another throw Saturday in the game against the Mets; his inconsistency on the routine play is probably THE issue for him.

Later Sunday morning, incumbent shortstop Pedro Florimon played most of a game between the Triple A and Double A squads. I showed up at that field just in time to see Florimon rip a triple down the right field line off B.J. Hermsen. I also saw Florimon strike out the next time up against Hermsen. I didn't see him called upon to make a play in the field.

Word later Sunday had Florimon scheduled to play in tonight's major league exhibition.

Florimon was one reason Ron Gardenhire was up in the tower watching the action. Another was Aaron Hicks, who was hitting (but not playing in the field) for the Double A team.

I saw Hicks homer off Yohan Pino -- left-handed, Hicks' weaker side -- at which point major league hitting coach Tom Brunansky stuck his head in the dugout and called him out of the game. A few minutes later, both Hicks and Florimon were riding a golf cart to the main stadium.

With non-roster guys Darin Mastroianni and Jermaine Mitchell sent down  in the morning cuts, the center field job is down to Hicks and Alex Presley. Presley started Sunday's game against the Miami Marlins. He singled in his first at-bat and laer reached on an error. After the error, he tried to steal second. And, for the second time this spring, Presley beat the throw but overslid the base. He's 0-for-3 as a base stealer this spring.

Hicks later replaced Presley in the game and doubled (right-handed, and with help from the Miami left fielder) in his only at-bat.

If I had to guess right now, I'd say Hicks is the likely center fielder to open the season.

---

Just to update my obsession with the notion of Jason Bartlett making the roster: He entered the game late at second base. He came up after Hicks' double in the bottom of the eighth. The lefty pitching for Miami fell behind 2-0.

Ahead in the count. With the platoon advantage. Against a minor leaguer with 18 MLB innings to his credit. This was a prime shot for Bartlett to break his Grapefruit League 0-fer, right? Uh, no. He swung at the 0-2 and hit a weak foul to the first base side. He did, ultimately, draw a walk; he is now 0-for-23 with two walks, which works out to an on-base percentage of .080.

Things figure to come to a head pretty quickly. Bartlett is said to have a March 25 opt-out; if he's not on the roster by then, he can declare free agency. The Twins should call that bluff; this is getting ridiculous.

Spring training trip Day 4: Overview

Deolis Guerra fires a pitch in the ninth inning Sunday.

Saturday the Twins played on the other side of Florida (against the Mets); for my wife and me, it was Sanibel Day. No baseball; we spent the day on the islands of Sanibel and Captiva.

But we were back to baseball on Sunday, watching the Twins beat a rag-tag subset of the Miami Marlins. Earlier this month I took note in the Monday print column of the Marlins' complaints when the Red Sox sent a squad of unknowns to play the Fish, and observed:

The Marlins will be the visitors for one of the upcoming games I see in Fort Myers. 

I do not expect to see Giancarlo Stanton or Jarrod Saltalamacchia, the two established position players on the Miami roster.

As it happened, the bulk of the Marlins' "names" were on a junket with the Yankees to Panama in some sort of Mariano Rivera tribute tour.

Former Twins pitcher Kevin Slowey started the Fort Myers game for Miami and went five innings, allowing two runs. Slowey spent last year with the Marlins and did fairly well, but was moved out of the rotation in midseason and later shut down after just 92 innings. He re-signed with them, but as a minor leaguer with the proverbial invite. I'd still love to see him make the Twins look foolish for running him off, but that seems unlikely.

For the Twins, it was Ricky Nolasco for five innings of baserunners, ground balls and two runs. The Twins turned two double plays behind him (keystone combo of Eduardo Escobar at short and Brian Dozier at second).

After Nolasco came Caleb Thielbar, Glen Perkins and Jared Burton, each of whom mowed through the Marlins lineup. Then came the guy I was most curious to see, Deolis Guerra.

Guerra is the last piece of the Johan Santana trade left with the Twins. A big right-hander, he missed most of last year after a blood clot was found in his right shoulder while he was pitching for his native Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic. Like Slowey, he's a non-roster guy.

Guerra's changeup has been touted in the past, and he used it quite a bit in the ninth inning. Fastballs were generally in the low 90s, topping out (this according to the stadium scoreboard) at 93. His change was in the upper 70s, and he struck out two Marlins with it.

Guerra offers the same style of pitching as Burton. It comes at a lower price. I suggested last week that the Twins might seek to move Burton to make room for Guerra. What I saw Sunday certainly did not discourage that notion.

Spring training trip, Day 2: The shortstops

Jason Bartlett hasn't
played in the majors
since April 2012.

It was a couple hours before game time on Thursday, and the Twins infielders were leaving the little "Tom Kelly Field," passing between the barricades on their way back inside.

A voice called out: "Welcome back, Jason!"

Jason Bartlett -- the Twins regular shortstop in 2006-7 who was then dealt away in the ill-fated Delmon Young trade -- stopped, eyed the fans lining the railings, and walked over to a boy, to whom he handed his bat.

Since leaving the Twins, Bartlett has been an All-Star, played in a World Series, and been out of the game completely. Now he's trying, at age 34, to make that call of "welcome back" a reality.

The odds are against him. He started Friday's game at Hammond Stadium at shortstop. One hard smash handcuffed him, although he did block the ball and got the out. At the plate, he flew out twice to left field, making him 0-for-19 in "official" Grapefruit League play.

Bartlett spent Thursday afternoon playing around the outfield and leading off every inning in a minor league game. This effort was of sufficient interest to Ron Gardenhire that he skipped the early innings of the major league game to see Bartlett.

Gardenhire cast Bartlett's performance in a positive light -- he hit three balls hard --  and the consensus of the press seems to be that the manager really wants to have Bartlett on his roster as a utility guy.

Gardy is a powerful ally to have in a roster fight, but even he doesn't see Bartlett as a legit shortstop contender. And at some point, Bartlett has to hit.

Elsewhere in shortstop land:

Pedro Florimon, the incumbent recovering from an appendectomy, played a few innings Friday in a minor league game. Seth Stohs was watching:

Pedro Florimon flew out to LF in 1st AB in Ft. Myers game.
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

Florimon fielded a ground ball but threw low to 1B for an error.
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

Florimon strikes out looking for his second at bat..
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

One-hopper to pitcher in Florimon's third at bat in 3 innings.
— Seth Stohs (@SethTweets) March 14, 2014

OK, not the best of outings for Florimon.

In Tampa, prospect Danny Santana hit a double in the major league team's split squad win over the Yankees. He also misplayed a throw ...

Ellsbury doubles on 0-2 fastball from Gibson. Arcia throw beat him to bag, but Santana fails to glove. #MNTwins
— Mike Berardino (@MikeBerardino) March 14, 2014

It's 1-1. Ellsbury given double (although Santana should have caught bouncing throw from Arcia). Double by Roberts. Both on 0-2 pitches
— LaVelle E. Neal III (@LaVelleNeal) March 14, 2014

And, again, that's the kind of thing that grates on a manager. Makeable plays that aren't made keep shortstops in the minors.

Spring training trip, Day 2: Overview

Matt Guerrier is hoping
to revive his career with
a return to the Twins.

If Thursday's game featured legitimate lineups (and it did) and a packed house (and it did), Friday's was something else again. Baltimore had no assured starters in its lineup, although the Orioles did bring a legitimate set of pitchers. And there were plenty of open seats in Hammond Stadium.

The Twins had a split squad, with one set playing the Yankees in Tampa (and winning that one 7-3).

The final outcome in my game was a 2-2 tie. Brandon Waring, the former Oriole farmhand of whom I wrote in my Day 1 recap, bopped a two-out homer in the bottom of the ninth off Troy Patton to even the score. But when Chris Parmelee flew out to end the ninth, the game ended. Presumably the Orioles were out of pitchers, or perhaps the umpires decided almost three hours of lethargic baseball was enough.

Which it was. Mike Pelfrey starts are simply difficult to sit though. He exceeded 50 pitches in the first two innings and didn't make it through the fourth.

He was followed by most of the veteran late-inning options in the Twins 'pen -- Brian Duensing (who allowed a homer in his 1.2 innings); Glen Perkins (who fanned two in a 1-2-3 inning and then signed a big contract extension); and Jared Burton.

And then came Matt Guerrier, once a mainstay in the Twins bullpen and now a nonroster guy rehabbing from arm surgery. Friday was his exhibition debut for 2014. On the surface, it went well; Guerrier struck out two men and got his third on a weak grounder to second.

On the other hand, I kept an eye on the scoreboard radar gun readings, and he didn't top 89. In comparison, Lester Oliveros, who worked the ninth (despite having been dispatched to the minor league complex on Sunday), repeatedly threw his fast balls at 93 and 94 mph and finished his inning with a reading of 96, which broke the hitter's bat.

Guerrier was never a big velocity guy, but in his heyday he cracked 90 pretty frequently. This is not a slam on him -- as I said earlier, he's still in rehab mode -- but I'm going to say he's a bit short of being ready for the majors.

Spring training trip, Day 1: Overview

Matt Hoffman has
spent six years in
the Detroit Tigers system,
compiling a minor league
record of 19-27,  3.90

I'm in Fort Myers for a few days to take in a little spring training and escape what I presume is the continuing melt from our harsh winter.

A few comments from today's game (I'll have another post in the morning on a specific player):

The Twins pitching usage might contain a signal. Phil Hughes started and went three innings. The first two were very good, the third was ugly -- there were two errors, a play that should have been made but wasn't, a play that probably couldn't be made but almost was, and way too many pitches.

Sam Deduno, the apparent front-runner for the fifth starter job, was also scheduled to work. But before he got the call, non-roster lefty Matt Hoffman worked two innings. The first was clean, the second was not: another infield error resulted in two runs. Unearned runs, but they still count as runs.

This interests me because the Twins used Hoffman while the Red Sox still had their regulars in the game. They obviously wanted to see him against bona fide major league hitters. Duduno got his work in against the subs (three clean innings).

My inference: The idea of replacing Brian Duensing with Hoffman may have legs.

Brandon Waring takes an unsuccessful
swing during Thursday's game against
the Boston Red Sox.

Jason Kubel looked a bit trimmer than I remember. He drew two walks Thursday, one of them against a lefty. Earlier in the week, he homered off a lefty, and a really good one (David Price). Kubel hadn't done much this spring before this week, and he probably needed to start showing something.

I'm not trying to sell this as reason to believe in Kubel. There's a lot of reason to say he can't hit lefties enough to justify playing him against them -- like his entire career. But there are people in the Twins organization looking for reason to believe in him, and one in particular is the manager.

Brandon Waring is a minor league vet in camp as a nonroster invitee. We were seated next to the assistant general manager of the Bowie Baysox, the Double A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles, and he spoke highly of Waring, who he described as a decent third baseman, can play first or (in a pinch) an outfield corner, good power, doesn't hit for average.

I theorize the Twins signed Waring because they figured Miguel Sano was going to need surgery and they needed the third base help for the high minors. That's how it worked out.

Current Outsider Projected Opening Pen (COPOP)

Does Kevin Slowey fit better in the
long relief job, or as trade bait?

Late in Friday's exhibition game I left my seat behind home plate to visit with three other Twins bloggers -- Topper Anton, Nick Nelson and Seth Stohs -- who were sitting a section over and further up. I raved to them about the breaking pitch I'd seen a few innings earlier from Dusty Hughes (a pitch that led to my Monday print column).

Then I saw Carlos Gutierrez coming in to pitch the eighth inning, and scurried back to my seat to get a better look at his vaunted sinker.

It was a weird inning. The Hammond Stadium radar gun (which has been widely suspect all spring) gave him some of the highest pitch speeds of the game. But he got no ground balls -- two outfield flies and a baserunner cut down trying to advance on a pitch that popped out of the catcher's glove.

I returned to the trio and reported seeing nothing that resembled Gutierrez's reputed strengths.

Somewhere along the line, Anton asked how I projected the bullpen, and I responded with what I had posted a few days earlier:

Closer: Joe Nathan
Setup 1: Matt Capps
Lefty 1: Jose Mijares
Setup 2/middle relief 1: Pat Neshek
Lefty 2: Glen Perkins, Scott Diamond or Dusty Hughes (in that order)
MR 2: Jim Hoey
Long man: Kevin Slowey

But, I added, I think there's a better chance that one of the six starters will be traded or put on the disabled list than that one will wind up in the bullpen. (And while we were talking, Kyle Waldrop struck out the side in the ninth inning.)

Since that conversation, I've come to doubt Hoey's viability as a candidate. Yes, he has more velocity than anybody else in camp. It's not helping him get outs.

Patrick Reusse of the Star Tribune has a fresh column  that essentially projects the bullpen jobs thusly:

Cl: Nathan
S1: Capps
L1: Mijares
S2/MR1: ? a trade target
L2: Hughes
MR2: Waldrop
LM: Jeff Manship

Reusse expects Slowey to be dealt for a relief pitcher and says the Ron Gardenhire/Rick Anderson duo like Manship, Hughes and Waldrop.

I've discounted Waldrop's chances this spring because he's not on the 40-man roster. But at least one spot on the 40 is likely to open, because Perkins and Diamond are use-or-lose. If Hughes wins the second lefty job, it's going to be tough to fit either of them on the 25-man roster, and there's no way all three will stick.

If the decision had to be made today, I think Diamond would be returned to the Braves. That would open a slot for Waldrop.

But I continue to believe that the Twins will be loathe to give up on Perkins. Hughes has options left, Perkins does not. Gardenhire may prefer Hughes, but the front office justifiably hates giving up inventory and is quite capable of overruling him on this one.

So let's make this the Current Outsider Projected Opening Pen (COPOP):

Cl: Nathan

S1: Capps

L1: Mijares

S2/MR1: Neshek

L2: Perkins

MR2: Waldrop

LM: Manship

It's a flawed projection, because it anticipates a trade of Slowey without a return. That's possible, but not likely.

COPOP will be updated with some frequency.

A morning on the minor league side

Miguel Sano (24) reacts to a ground ball to his right during
infield practice in the Twins minor league complex.

There are two kinds of uniforms at the Twins minor league complex. The coaches and managers wear the major league whites. The players wear navy jerseys and the gray road trousers.

I surmise that it makes it easy to tell at a glance if this stranger is one of the bosses or one of the underlings. And that over time it makes a visual symbol of the goal of each of these players — to wear that bright white.

Sunday was a brilliant day — easily the best weather of my four days in Fort Myers — and I spent the morning watching the tedious drills of the first days of spring training.

On Field 1, waves of pitchers took fielding practice. On Field 2, catchers — none of whom had names I recognized; the most prominent catching prospects in the organization were still in major league camp — were working. On Field 3, infielders — most, if not all, of them bound for Class A teams — took infield.

It was that group that I settled in to watch, and specifically Miguel Sano.

Tommy Watkins (61), a longtime Twins farmhand who got
a cup of coffee in the majors in 2007, is now a coach in
their minor league system.

Sano is one of the most important pieces of the Twins minor league system. He was signed in 2009 for the second-largest bonus in the history of Dominican prospects and is still just 17 (or so it is believed). Eyeballing him from the other side of the fence makes it easy to understand why some doubt the veracity of that age; his is not the body of an adolescent.

Sano split time last season between third base and shortstop. The conventional wisdom holds that he's going to outgrow shortstop — become too bulky and lose the mobility the position requires. I noticed Sunday that the coaches encouraged the players to shift positions frequently as they hit dozens of balls,  but Sano seldom left the third base group.

Another player I watched was Niko Goodrum, who the Twins took in the second round last summer. He's said to be a stellar athlete, but there are questions about his bat. Tall and slender (he's  listed at 6-foot-3, 167 pounds), he'll play short until he proves that he can't handle it.

When that drill ended, I shifted over to watch the pitchers. Again, tedious, boring drills.  Two lines, one fielding "bunts" and throwing to third base, the other line either throwing to first or covering first.

There were two things I took from that:

1) The Twins have a lot of tall pitchers in their organization now.
2) Toby Gardenhire is still around. (He was the guy taking throws at third base.) Young Gardy had been in major league camp the previous two springs as an extra catcher, and when he didn't get the invite this year I wondered if he had been bounced from the organization.

Spring training: Phillies 6, Twins 3

Kyle Gibson faced five men and got them all on Sunday.

Great seats, hey buddy?

In this case, yeah. We were a bit to the first base side of home, four rows off the field. We could tell which Phillies hitters had shaved that morning when they were in the on-deck circle.

The Twins weren't so good. They were no-hit through five innings. And they played some really sloppy defense, some of which showed up on the scoreboard.

Trevor Plouffe committed at least three misplays at shortstop, only one of which was scored an error. None of them resulted in runs, but it wasn't pretty. Ben Revere turned a seemingly routine flyball into a double (triggering the six-run Philadelphia inning in the fifth), and Delmon Young dropped a foul ball, although that may have been intentional (it would easily have scored a runner from third, and the Twins were playing the infield in).

Plouffe's struggles accounted for two of the four "hits" the Phillies got off Francisco Liriano in his three innings. Liriano worked out of the jams.

Joe Nathan couldn't. He gave up all six runs. Revere almost got skulled by the first batter. (It was a cloudless day, and the glare off the outfielders' glasses was noticeable from my seats, but still ... gotta catch that ball.) The next guy pushed a bunt past Nathan for a base hit. Then came a pair of legit doubles, and in some order, a single, a walk, a stolen base, capped off by a three-run home off the right field foul screen. A rough outing, and Nathan wasn't very good, but it started with Revere's misplay.

Kyle Gibson relieved Nathan in the middle of the inning, He breezed through five hitters. I fully expect him to be sent to the minor league camp soon, maybe even Monday, but by all accounts he has impressed the decision makers. He certainly impressed me.

Eric Hacker, another pitcher I expect to be demoted soon, tossed a pair of scoreless innings, but it's probably too little too late for his opening roster chances.

I have more to talk about, particularly what I saw in the minor league complex Sunday morning and a Matt Anderson sighting, but ... we have a flight to catch early in the morning, and stuff to do in order to make that flight.

The perks of a broadcaster

This is the scene: It is late Friday morning in Fort Myers. On a practice field on the Twins complex -- the field furthest from Hammond Stadium, physically and symbolically -- the Twins minor leaguers are gathered. It is reporting day for the dozens of players who are too young, too raw, too lacking in current ability, to be in the major league camp, which has been in session now almost a month.

There is no actual practice today. The players check in, have their physical, are divided into small groups and timed on a four-lap run around the warning track. They don't even have numbered jerseys yet.

There is little to see here. But the major league workouts have ended on the other end of the complex, there's still a couple of hours before the exhibition game with the Red Sox begins, and a few dozen fans have wandered to the minor league side.

And in a one-mound bullpen squeezed between the field where players are running laps and the path where the spectators stand, a scrawny lefty is throwing to another left-hander in a catchers' crouch. The catcher is wearing a fielder's glove. He is Gary Lucas, former major league pitcher, now a coach in the lower levels of the Twins system.

It is quickly apparent that Lucas is deconstructing the pitcher's delivery to such an extent that one wonders How did this kid get signed? And then one notices, standing in the corner of the bullpen taking it all in, Dick Bremer, the Twins TV play-by-play man.

A spectator calls out to Bremer about Bert Blyleven's whereabouts. Bremer says he does't expect Bert to be around until Monday (the Monday game is to be televised back home). Lucas tells the youngster he's letting go off the ball "up here" and needs to let go "out in front," which will bring the pitch down. The kid throws a lower pitch. See how that one moved? Lucas exclaims.

Lucas is ready to wrap up this semi-private tutoring session; so is the kid. Lucas coaxes him to throw a strike. We're going to end this with a strike, or a least a neighborhood pitch. I know you've got it in you. The lefty finally fires one over the plate, and Lucas bounces up, chats with the youngster a bit, accepts thanks from the senior Bremer, assesses the youngster's fastball at about 70 mph, inquires as to his age, and heads to the field.

The broadcaster joins his son, who says something quietly about not expecting the spectators. The father is not exactly sympathetic.

On the warning track, the first group of runners is staggering to the end of their final lap.

Spring training: Twins 3, Red Sox 2

A fearsome foursome of Twins bloggers:  (from left)
Nick Nelson, Topper Anton, Edward Thoma and Seth Stohs.

Justin Morneau and Delmon Young made their "official" spring training debuts on Friday -- that "B" game on Tuesday was an unofficial exhibition game -- and they were the first to leave. Young had a well-struck single to right in two at-bats; Morneau struck out his first time up and reached base his second time up with Carl Crawford dropped a fly ball.

So that's probably the headline of the day. A few other observations:

We got there early and watched some PFP (pitchers fielding practice), infield practice and batting practice for the guys who weren't starting. Nothing too remarkable there, although I did overhear Ron Gardenhire saying before it go started, Let's do it right. This is, apparently, something that strikes players from other organizations: Everybody does PFP in spring training; the Twins have a real focus not just on doing it, but doing it right, not sloppily, not in a let's-get-this-out-of-the-way manner.

Joe Mauer did some hitting in the batting cage under the stadium, which drew a crowd of onlookers several rows deep (the cages are visible from the outside). It felt a good bit like looking over the shoulder of somebody trying to type.

I was wondering if Tsuyoshi Nishioka was going to play, given the earthquake/tsunami in his homeland, but he did, saying that he would honor his countrymen by doing so. I paid more attention to him than to Morneau, to be honest about it; Morneau's play I'm familiar with. Nishioka is a novelty.

He had a well-struck single to left in his first at-bat, right-handed against Jon Lester. Later he faced a lefty and drew a walk. His stance right-handed appears conventional; left-handed he has that odd trait so many of the Japanese hitters have of starting the body forward while leaving the hands back.

On defense he made a very nice diving back-handed stab of a grounder on which he was leaning the wrong way initially. He appeared playful, even flamboyant (flipping the ball to Morneau behind his back during pregame warmups, for example). He's going to be fun to watch.

Ben Revere beat out a bunt and stole third base. He's  fast and, unlike Carlos Gomez, appears to have an idea of how to apply his speed. (Revere is wearing No. 11, which used to belong to Chuck Knoblauch and Jacque Jones.)

Dusty Hughes threw a wicked breaking ball for a strikeout to end his one inning of work. One pitch, but it really elevated his status in my eyes.

Carlos Gutierrez and Kyle Waldrop worked the last two innings. They're similar style pitchers, but Waldrop was the more effective. Gutierrez didn't get a groundball in his inning; Waldrop stuck out  two men the side.

And the infield substitutes had a very sloppy rundown behind Gutierrez. Matt Tolbert finally took control of it and got the out, but I expect that tomorrow's morning drills will involve a heavy dose of executing the rundown.

Which they will do without me dancing attendance. Tomorrow is our non-baseball day for the trip.