Buxton, Hughes and a coming pitching move

Some roster and role moves from the Twins on Monday.

Before the game, Paul Molitor announced that Phil Hughes is being bounced to the bullpen with Kyle Gibson coming off the disabled list this week. Hughes is 1-7 with a 5.74 ERA, and his strikeout rate has declined to barely more than 5 per nine innings, so we can't really say that he's been effective.

On the other hand, he's making $13 million, which is a lot of coin for a long man, which will presumably be his role, at least until somebody else loses his rotation spot. Which will happen, whether because Pat Dean returns to reality, because somebody gets hurt or somebody gets traded. It's just a matter of time.

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Danny Santana injured his left hamstring during Monday's loss to Oakland, and Byron Buxton is returning.

Buxton hit .333/.402/.605 in 28 games in Rochester, so it would appear Triple A wasn't holding many mysteries for the kid.

I'm glad to see Buxton return, and I have to imagine the Twins pitching staff is too. The outfield defense just upgraded markedly

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Gibson is slated to start Thursday against Tampa Bay. We know how the rotation slot is being opened for him. We don't know how the roster spot will be opened.

The Twins right now have 13 pitchers. I don't know what the option situation is for Buddy Boshers or Brandon Kintzler, but I doubt either has any options left. That probably makes Taylor Rogers the easiest to send to Rochester.

Contemplating Robbie Grossman

The bat died gloriously: Robbie Grossman splintered his
bat on this two-run double Friday in Seattle.

Robbie Grossman got called up to the Twins while I was taking my San Francisco hiatus, and I haven't commented about him in any real detail, just a dismissive aside on my return to the blog about there being no real upside to him:

Grossman is not going to be a regular on a quality team. Not now, not four years from now, not ever.

I still think that, by the way. I still think that eventually, maybe even by the end of this season, the Twins will have a regular outfield of Max Kepler, Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano. Eddie Rosario and Oswaldo Arcia are a bit younger than Grossman and have higher ceilings than Grossman.

But after a week of watching Grossman take one quality at-bat after another, I have to say that I agree that he's a better player right here right now than Rosario and Arcia. Grossman has drawn six walks in 34 plate appearances; Rosario drew three in 121 before his demotion. Grossman has played considerable center field in the minors; nobody ever did that with Arcia.

Realistically, Grossman isn't a .357 hitter with a 1.150 OPS (his numbers after Sunday's game). If he were, he wouldn't have been released twice in the last six months, first by Houston and then by Cleveland.

He's 26 years old, a switch hitter, with a minor league record heavier on on-base percentage than on power. Once led the minors in walks drawn (he was repeating high A ball), which led Baseball Prospectus to list him among their top 100 prospects, which was frankly the kind of silly ranking one gets sometimes when scouting the stat lines. Drafted in the sixth round by Pittsburgh, traded to the Astros in 2012 in a deal that sent Wandy Rodriguez to the Pirates, released by Houston last November, signed by Cleveland, released by Cleveland earlier this month, signed by the Twins. He's not had a stable season since 2012; he's been switching levels and organizations constantly.

Paul Molitor's going to keep feeding Grossman playing time until he demonstrates that he shouldn't get that playing time, and I can't argue against that; Rosario and Arcia have already demonstrated that they shouldn't get that time, and Danny Santana is more ripe to be displaced from the outfield anyway. Somebody has to play in the outfield while Buxton and Kepler marinate in Triple A. But if Grossman has a big league career in front of him, it's more likely as a fourth outfielder than as a regular.

Pic of the Week

Florida State center fielder Ben DeLuzio face-plants
into the wall after making a run-saving catch Wednesday
in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament.

Ouch.

Contemplating Pat Dean

Pat Dean 's strikeout
rate in the minors was
5.3 per nine innings.
He has 20 Ks in 21
innings so far with
the Twins.

Pat Dean made his second start for the Twins on Friday night in Seattle and handcuffed the Mariners for his first major league W -- seven innings, four hits, two runs, no walks, eight strikeouts. One of those runs was the result of a leadoff "triple" that Danny Santana really should have corralled.

Last Saturday, Dean went six innings against Toronto, allowing two runs in a no-decision that the Twins ultimately won. Add in two relief outings, and he has a 3.43 ERA in 21 innings.

So who is Pat Dean, and what should we reasonably expect from him?

Lefty, 26 years old, third-round draft pick in 2010, worked his way up the minor league ladder without any real success until last season, when he put up a 2.82 ERA in 179 innings at Triple A. Dick Bremer last night was calling it a breakthrough season, but the underlying stats really didn't change for him. He still had a poor strikeout rate, still had a very good walk rate. He was, presumably, either lucky or had a better defense behind him, or both.

He is, to slap a label on him, a finesse lefty, and we've seen this act a few times before: Scott Diamond, Andrew Albers, Tommy Milone. They had some success when they located their mediocre fastballs exceptionally well, and failed when they didn't. They have very little margin of error, and that more often than not results in brief careers.

Dean right now has an opportunity and is doing something good with it. The Greg McMichael Rule again: If you get outs, they'll find a role for you. Right now that role is starting rotation, but that could change really fast.

Kyle Gibson had a rehab start the other day in Fort Myers (with Terry Ryan in attendance), and it's possible that he'll return as soon as this week. Who would Gibson dislodge from the rotation? There's a dilemma. The three veterans with fat contracts (Ervin Santana, Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes) aren't doing well, and the two young guys with flexible roster status (Dean and Tyler Duffey) are getting outs and working innings.

Bottom line: Dean can't afford a slip up, and there's reason to expect that he will, eventually, slip up.

A death and a DWI

Neil Allen's pitching staff has struggled this year.

Thursday was a rough day for for Minnesota pitching coaches.

Todd Oakes, longtime pitching coach for the University of Minnesota, died after a long battle with leukemia. 

Glen Perkins of the Twins, who pitched for Oakes in college, posted a statement on Twitter praising "T.O." for his influence on Perkins both as a pitcher and as a person. 

Also on Thursday, the Twins suspended Neil Allen after the pitching coach was arrested for driving while intoxicated. Allen ran his playing career aground on alcohol but was reportedly sober for 20 years.

Eric Rasmussen, the organization's pitching coordinator, has been named interim pitching coach.

I have no real personal experience with addiction and addictive behavior, and I have no idea if Allen's arrest was a unique lapse or the exposure of ongoing behavior. It certainly seems possible that the continuing struggles of his charges fed the impulse to return to the shelter of the bottle. Sobriety is a daily struggle for the alcoholic, and lapses are unfortunately common. I can, and do, sympathize with Allen without condoning driving under the influence.

His superiors will eventually have to make a decision: keep him or dismiss him. They don't have to make that decision now, and they shouldn't. Allen too has a decision to make, whether he can maintain his sobriety under the stress of being in charge of a major league pitching staff. I don't know what the correct answer is for the organization or the individual, and I doubt any of us do. 

Buddy Boshers and the failed bullpen

Buddy Boshers had
an ERA of 1.42 with
Rochester when he
was called up.

The Twins went back to an eight-man bullpen Wednesday, adding indy-ball refugee Buddy Boshers. To make room on the 25-man roster, Darin Mastroianni went on the 15-day disabled list; to make room on the 40-man roster, Glen Perkins went on the 60-day disabled list.

Boshers is a 28-year-old lefty who got 15.1 major league innings back in 2013 with the Angels and walked eight in those innings. He spent seven seasons in the Angels system and pitched last year in the Atlantic League. He was a non-roster invitee in training camp, one of the pack of guys I categorize as: If  he pitches in Target Field, something went wrong.

Something went wrong is an understatement this Twins season, of course. That Boshers and Brandon Kintzler are in the bullpen is a symptom; that Perkins is out until nobody-knows-when is part of the cause.

The Twins were counting on a late-inning trio (or foursome) of Perkins, Kevin Jepsen, Trevor May and maybe Casey Fien. Perkins was ineffective before being sidelined, and May and Jepsen have essentially matching ERAs of 5.56 and 5.59 respectively. Fien has been waived twice, first by the Twins and then by the Dodgers.

Minnesota's most effective bullpen arms have been Fernando Abad and Michael Tonkin, neither of whom were expected to carry much of the burden coming into the season. Neither has managed to creep into game situation use, although there really haven't been many late leads or ties to protect.

Boshers got the call over J.T. Chargois presumably because (a) he reportedly has a June 15 opt-out in his contract and (b) he's left-handed. There's speculation that Abad and his 0.51 ERA might be spun off relatively soon, which would make more sense than signing him to a mult-year deal.

But Chargois has a chance to be a genuinely useful piece. That cannot be honestly said of most of the current bullpen.

11-34

Eleven and thirty-four.

It seems pointless to say that the Twins are a better team than 11-34. Memorial Day is approaching, and the Twins are playing .244 ball, which isn't even a good batting average.

Not a good batting average, but the Twins' team batting average is, as Baseball Reference has it early this morning, .233.

Baseball Reference's team pages display photos of the squad's top dozen players in order of their WAR (Wins Above Replacement). The Twins page this morning is fairly amusing in a dour way. Jorge Polanco, who sits during his time on the big club and is now in Triple A, is by WAR the sixth best player on this team. Robbie Grossman, who showed up while I was in California, is already eighth.

Of the 12, five (Tyler Duffey, Polanco, Brandon Kintzler, Pat Dean and Juan Centeno) opened the season at Rochester, and a sixth (Grossman) was signed about a week ago as a minor league free agent.

And Ervin Santana, who didn't make it out of the fourth inning last night, is second. My guess is that when the system has everything updated and recalculated, E. Santana will drop a few notches. Not far enough to catch D. Santana, of course.