The coaching chopping block

Joe Vavra, on the job
for seven seasons, was
the newbie on the
coaching staff.

It was quite the purge at Target Field on Thursday, the day after the Twins completed a second-straight season with the worst record in the American League.

By the time Terry Ryan finished meeting one-on-one with the coaching staff, only manager Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson were left in their accustomed positions — and they on one-year deals.

Bullpen coach and spring-training scheduler Rick Stelmaszek, who joined the coaching staff while the team was still playing at Metropolitan Stadium, was the first to get the ax — and when that word broke, the implications were obvious. If Stelly was getting pushed out, nobody was safe.

Rick Stelmaszek
had been with the
Twins for 32 years.

Also gone: third base coach Steve Liddle, first base coach Jerry White, and trainer Rick McWane. Bench coach Scott Ullger and hitting coach Joe Vavra are being reassigned to outfield instruction and infield instruction respectively; these do not figure to be major league positions, but I suspect we'll get a fuller spelling-out of things today, when Ryan, owner Jim Pohlad and team president Dave St. Peter meet with reporters.

This kind of purge is fairly common with other organizations, but not with the Twins. Even when the managers changed under Pohlad ownership, the coaching staffs remained largely intact.

Scott Ullger, at
various times, has
been the first base
coach, the hitting
coach, the third base
coach and the
bench coach.

From my perspective, the coaching staff the past several years has had two significant omissions: First, there was no native Spanish speaker. I suspect that part of the problem the Twins have had with such players as Francisco Liriano, Carlos Gomez and Alexi Casilla has been communication.  Second, the only infielders on the staff since Al Newman was fired after the 2005 season were the manager and the hitting coach, neither of whom should be expected to be focused on making sure the shortstop is properly positioned or on refining the second baseman's pivot.

Removing five of the six coaches opens plenty of opportunity for new faces. It is being widely assumed that the Triple A staff — Gene Glynn, Bobby Cuellar and Tom Brunansky — will be brought in, and Paul Molitor has apparently indicated an interest in returning to the coaching staff, which he left when Gardenhire became manager.

Let's see:

Jerry White had the
longest major league
playing career on
the staff: 11 seasons.

Manager: Gardenhire
Pitching coach: Anderson
Bench coach: Molitor (replacing Ullger)
Hitting coach: Brunansky (Vavra)
Third base coach: Glynn (Liddle)
First base coach: ? (White)
Bullpen coach: Cuellar (Stelmaszek)

Glynn and Molitor are former infielders, so that concern of mine is met. I don't know that the Spanish speaker concern is. 

Molitor would likely become the backup manager, a role Ullger has filled under Gardenhire — taking over after ejections or if Gardy is ill. And if the belief that Gardenhire is now on a short leash is correct, Molitor might be the new manager in waiting.

From triumph to tragedy

I was trying to get my head around the Oakland A's surprise division title last night when the sad word came from.A's (and former Twins) reliever Pat Neshek via Twitter:

Please pray for my family. Tonight my wife & I lost our first & only son 23 hours after he was born with no explanation.

Neshek's wife, Stephanee, had earlier tweeted this photo of Gehrig John Neshek and called the child their "playoff baby."

There is, apparently, no cause of death. What a hellish development.

Buster Posey's batting title

Buster Posey hit .337 this year. It was the second-best
batting average on his team and in the National League,
but he's the official batting champion.

Buster Posey is the odds-on favorite to win the National League MVP award, and deservedly so. The San Francisco Giants catcher had a great season — .337 batting average, 24 homers, 102 RBIs.

He will be officially recognized as the NL batting champ — officially because,  in one of those odd fits of self-righteousness we seem to be prone to, disgraced teammate Melky Cabrera, whose .346 batting average came one plate appearance short of qualifying, is being denied Rule 10.22(a).

Catchers and batting average crowns are an odd combo. This is the seventh time a catcher has led a major league in batting average — and the third time it was disputable. Follow along ...

1926: Bubbles Hargrave, a part-time catcher with Cincinnati, hits .353. The qualifying standard at the time was 100 games played; Hargrave, who split playing time with Val Picinich, appeared in 105 games and had just 366 plate appearances. By today's standards, he would have needed 478.

It's really a weird list of leaders. After Hargrave, it's teammate Cockoo Christensen, an outfielder who also played just part time (385 plate appearances). Third is Earl Smith — another catcher, with even less playing time than Hargrave. Fourth is Cy Williams — and again, he had less than 400 plate appearances. You have to get to rookie Paul Waner, a future Hall of Famer, to find a true regular on the leaders list.

(Perhaps the real problem in 1926 is that it's the one season in a decade-long span in which Rogers Hornsby didn't top .360. He hit a mere .317. But he did manage the Cardinals to the pennant and a World Series title.)

1938: Ernie Lombardi, Cincinnati, hits .342 in 529 plate appearances. By any standard, it's legit. Lombardi also wins the MVP award.

1942: Lombardi, now with Brooklyn, hits .330, but in only 347 plate appearances (105 games).  He is awarded the title over Enos Slaughter of St. Louis, who hit .318.

2006: Joe Mauer, .347 in 608 plate appearances.

2008: Mauer, .328 in 633 appearances.

2009: Mauer, .365 in 606 appearances. (And the MVP.)

2012: Posey.

All this is not to denigrate Posey's season. He had a superb year. He didn't have the best batting average in the league, not by the rules in place.

Eye on 2013: Anthony Swarzak

Anthony Swarzak was a second-round draft pick
|in the same year that the Twins drafted Trevor Plouffe,
Glen Perkins and Kyle Waldrop, all of whom went ahead of him.

The Twins needed somebody to make a fill-in start Tuesday in Sam Deduno's stead. I had expected Brian Duensing to get the ball, but he was used for a fairly extensive relief outing during the weekend, and Anthony Swarzak got the start.

Swarzak went five innings, giving up four runs. Which is pretty much in line with his career splits: 5.74 ERA in 27 career starts entering Tuesday's game, 4.03 ERA in 55 relief appearances.

The Twins still take Duesning seriously as a starting candidate, despite mounting evidence that he's a far more effective reliever. Even with Tuesday's spot start, I don't think they take Swarzak seriously as a starting candidate.

Nor should they. Duensing has two advantages over Swarzak. First, Duensing's left-handed. Second, he had some success in the rotation in 2009 and 2010.

I have often over the past few years invoked the memory of Matt Guerrier when discussing a certain type of bullpen candidate -- men with a starter's repertoire whose talent level was just a tad short of being a major league starter. Guerrier spent two seasons, 2005 and 2006, filling the long-man role in a well-stacked Minnesota bullpen, and stepped into higher leverage roles in 2007 as Jesse Crain got hurt and Juan Rincon lost his effectiveness.

One difference between Guerrier and Swarzak is that Swarzak has been used much more as a swingman -- 11 starts last season, five this year. My sense of it is that Swarzak would be well served if he were locked into the long relief job for a year or so. But that might well require a more stable starting rotation.

More league prospects lists

Eddie Rosario: Can he stick at second?

Last week, as Baseball America began to roll out online its league-by-league top prospects lists, I posted about the Twins minor leaguers on two of those lists.

Today BA's website features its Top 20 for the Midwest League. Miguel Sano is No. 2, and Eddie Rosario is No. 12. Those two are the only Twins on the list.

Jim Callis wrote the MWL reports, and he's the same BA staffer who suggested in a recent online chat that Rosario did not take well enough to second base to stick there. So it should be no surprise that that evaluation is aired in the (subscriber-only) scouting report on Rosario:

While he worked diligently on his defense, scouts don't think his hands, range or throwing are good enough for second base. His average speed may not bode well for a long-term fit in center field either.

We'll learn soon enough, I suppose, if the Twins organization agrees with that assessment.

BA/Callis also suggest that Sano may become an outfielder.

Meanwhile ... the print edition arrived today, and it includes the Top 20 for all the minor leagues, and the scouting reports for the Top 10s.

Other Twins who make lists:

• 1B/OF Chris Parmelee is No. 5 in the International League (Triple A)
• OF Oswaldo Arcia is No. 6 in the Eastern League (Double A) and No. 7 in the Florida State League (High A)
• OF Aaron Hicks is No. 8 in the Eastern League

And, as noted in the previous posts, OF Byron Buxton was No.1 in both the Appy League and the Gulf Coast League, and OF Max Kepler was No. 7 in the Appy League.

Seven unique players, two of them (Buxton and Arcia) on two lists. No pitchers, and its possible (but I think unlikely) that all seven will wind up as outfielders. The lack of sure-thing infielders is discouraging.

One note on the Parmelee ranking: The IL is described as unusually weak in true prospects:

The talent craters quickly after the trio of Matt Harvey, Sterling Marte and Chris Archer at the top. For a Triple-A league, there's a glaring lack of future starting major league position players. ... Most of the hitters on this list profile as complementary players or even reserves.

The actual report on Parmelee is quite positive, however.

Eye on 2013: Trevor Plouffe

Chris Parmelee greets Trevor Plouffe (24) at home plate
after Plouffe's home run Monday.

Trevor Plouffe hit his 24th home run of the season Monday night in Toronto. He also doubled in a run and drew a walk, giving him three straight games with two hits.

He also had his adventures defensively at third base. In the sixth inning, with the bases loaded and one out, he threw home on a ground ball and got one out. The next batter then doubled between Plouffe and the line — Plouffe's range to his right has been an issue — for two runs.

Ron Gardenhire's take on the inning, via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com:

I think a failed double play hurt us. We went home with it, but in my opinion we had to turn two there, and it ended up costing us to let them get in striking range.

Highs and lows. That's been Plouffe's season, and it's not certain that 26-year-old former first-round draft pick is going to be a regular for the Twins next year.

He had a monster run at the plate in mid-season. From May 13 (Mother's Day) through July 20 — 54 games, one third of the season — he hit .293/.345/.610 with 18 homers and 11 doubles.

Then he hurt his thumb, a "day-to-day" injury that ultimately kept him out of the lineup for three weeks and perhaps should have kept him out longer. Once he returned Aug. 13, he didn't hit: .188/.241/.312 through Sunday. As unimpressive as that slash line is, it's better than the .130/.277/.204 he compiled leading up to Mother's Day.

That roller coaster makes him a prime candidate for the misevaluation I call "Dick Bremer Disease," the tendency we tend to have of judging a player's talents by what he does at his best. Plouffe's not a .610 slugger. For the season, he has an on-base percentage under .300 and a slugging percentage under .450, and I think that's closer to his reality.

Defensively, Plouffe has not been good at third base. Baseball Info Solutions' plus-minus and runs saved metrics — explained here — put him near the bottom of defensive third basemen. Of the 20 men with at least 700 innings at the hot corner, Plouffe is tied with Miguel Cabrera for 17th in plus-minus and is 18th in runs saved.

Combine the lousy defense with the underwhelming offensive totals for the season, and Plouffe appears ripe for replacement. With whom is another matter; the Twins lack an obvious in-house alternative.

Eye on 2013: Matt Capps

Matt Capps' 2012:
30 games, 14 saves
and about half a
season on the
disabled list.

Matt Capps, semi-official whipping boy of the Twins Internet, opened the season as closer and was OK in that role — not great, but acceptable — into June.

He picked up saves on June 2, 3, 4 and 6 and a win on June 8— five games in seven days, throwing a total of just eight pitches in two of those outings — and at that point things appear to have started to splutter physically. He was given a week between appearances between June 15 and 23, then went on the disabled list for almost three weeks. He came back, made two appearances in three days, went back on the DL, and didn't return until last week.

It's the second year in a row that Capps has experienced arm issues that emerged soon after a period of daily work. That doesn't work well with modern bullpen usage, which tends to lean heavily on the idea that relievers can be used often in short bursts.

Glen Perkins is now in command of the ninth inning job, and nobody seriously believes that the Twins will pick up Capps' $6 million option for 2013. Capps is back, in reality, to audition for  the other 29 teams. He wants to show that his arm is sound going into the offseason and his expected free agency.

But he hasn't gotten much showing in. When he was reactivated, Ron Gardenhire made it known that

• Capps wouldn't be used on consecutive days and
• Capps had been told that he wasn't coming back to make one appearance and go home.

Capps returned for two series against teams in the playoff hunt — the Yankees and Tigers — and while the Twins didn't win either series, they were generally playing close games. He has made one appearance, mopping up a loss to the Yankees on Sept. 26, and as far as I know hasn't even warmed up since.

The Twins have a 10-man bullpen right now — well, call it nine, because one of them (probably Brian Duensing) will be called upon to start Tuesday in Sam Deduno's stead — and everybody else is a possible contributor to the 2013 Twins. Gardenhire took the games against the Yankees and Tigers seriously, not as a time to experiment, and right now Perkins, Jared Burton and Casey Fein are the top dogs in the bullpen.

So Capps' idleness last week is explicable. There are three games left, on the road against the non-contending Toronto Blue Jays, and if Capps goes unused in those games, I will be curious about why he was reactivated last week. One isolated appearance wouldn't seem to be much assurance to potential employers.