Ex-Twins watch: Chris Colabello

Last year at this time, Chris Colabello was an emphatic factor in the Toronto Blue Jays lineup. He had had a productive season at the plate -- .321/.367/.521 -- but was being largely limited to a platoon role because his skill set as a hitter largely duplicated those of Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki, all of whom either had more defensive value or were better hitters or both, and at some point one has too many right-handed sluggers in the batting order.

But he mattered away in the 2015 postseason -- he hit a couple of homers, dominated the Texas pitching staff, and by the time the Royals knocked the Jays out had pretty much pushed aside Justin Smoak, the switch-hitting first baseman who was his platoon mate.

This year Colabello is not a postseason factor. He failed a PED test during spring training, and he had only 10 games in when the suspension hit -- 10 games in which he hit a dismal .069. After the suspension, Colabello was sent to the minors, and he hit .180/.248/.288 for Buffalo, which is more likely to get him released than recalled.

He never got back to Toronto, and wouldn't be eligible for the postseason anyway because of the PED suspension. He turns 33 later this month. Colabello has never been anybody's first choice for a major league job, and his future is not notably bright.

Ex-Twins watch: Rene Rivera

It's been five years since Rene Rivera caught for the Twins, and he had such an undistinguished time of it in 2011 that many have probably forgotten it. He played in 45 games, had 114 plate appearances, and hit .144.

He re-upped with the Twins on a minor league deal in 2012, spent the entire season in the minors, was not called up for September, vented in a tweet that he quickly deleted, and wound up signing with San Diego. He got a little time in 2013 and quite a bit of time in 2014 -- he was the Padres' No. 1 catcher and actually hit a bit.

Then he was packaged in a three-way trade that sent him to Tampa Bay -- a trade known at the time as the Wil Myers trade and that may ultimately be known as the Trea Turner trade. He didn't hit for the Rays, and they released him this spring, and he signed with the Mets, where he wound up in a three-way timeshare of the catching job.

Rivera started Wednesday's wild card game for the Mets, and one of the running pieces of commentary -- both on the ESPN broadcast and on my Twitter feed -- was the quality (or lack of it) in his pitch framing. The general consensus was that Rivera was costing the Mets pitchers strikes, particularly at the bottom of the strike zone.

Rivera is supposed to be a good defensive catcher, but that's a label that gets attached to veterans who don't hit much. Rivera is 33 now, he doesn't hit much, he must be a defensive specialist.

I asked myself about halfway through the game Wednesday: Would the Twins have been better off with Rivera as their backup catcher than Juan Centeno? (Centeno, by the way, made his major league debut with the Mets.)

Rivera slashed .222/.291/.341 this year for the Mets in 207 plate appearances; he caught 481.2 innings in which he was charged with three passed balls and was involved in 19 wild pitches, and he threw out 30 percent of base stealers (league average 27 percent).

Centeno slashed .261/.312/.392 in 192 plate appearances. He caught 438.2 innings with five passed balls, 33 wild pitches (!) and threw out 14 percent of base stealers.

Centeno is the better hitter. Rivera is the better receiver. I think that's pretty obvious. Rivera got a little more playing time. Neither should be a regular catcher.

I'd prefer the Rivera type of backup catcher, a guy who doesn't actively damage the defense when he's playing. As I've observed repeatedly, Paul Molitor appears to value hitters over gloves, and Centeno is just another example of that.

In truth, the question of the No. 2 catcher is secondary to the Twins this winter. The presumption is that Kurt Suzuki won't be back, and the No. 1 job has no obvious heir.

Kim, Park and Korean stars

Just as Buck Showalter waited too long Tueday night to bring Zach Britton into the AL wild card game, I waited too long to comment on the odd year of Hyun Soo Kim.

Kim and the Orioles are done now, having lost the wild card game to the Toronto Blue Jays

Dedicated readers may recall that I made my biennial trip to spring training this year, and it came in early March. One of the games I saw at Hammond Stadium was against the Baltinore Orioles, and it brought out a TON of Korean media, because it involved two high-profile Koreans who had come over to the States: Byung Ho Park of the Twins and Kim of the O's.

Neither distinguished himself in that contest. Kim, to be blunt, didn't distinguish himself at all in March, and Showalter (and the Oriole front office) entered the season trying to get the outfielder to waive his contractual clause prohibiting his demotion.

Kim refused. And he saw little playing time early in the season. But by the end of May he was in the lineup pretty consistently, and he wound up slashing .302/.382/.420, albeit in less than 350 plate appearances. Showalter allowed Kim only 22 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers, and he never got a hit against a southpaw.

It was an odd thing this spring, however. The Twins entered the regular season feeling comfortable with Park as the DH, and the Orioles entered it believing Kim couldn't play in the majors. Park wound up in the minors (and having his season end early for hand surgery), and Kim was a significant help to a playoff team.

Kim and Park are significantly different kinds of players; Park is a first baseman and power guy, Kim an on-base guy. Then there's Jung Ho Kang, the Pittsburgh infielder, roughly the same age as Park and Kim, whose season didn't get started until May because of the broken leg he sustained late in the 2015 season and who missed a good bit of time in August with another injury. Kang was a more productive hitter, albeit in less playing time, in 2016; he also was restricted to third base in the field.

The Twins have a significant number of players limited to first base and designated hitter: Joe Mauer, Park, Kennys Vargas, maybe Miguel Sano. I'm sure there are plenty of fans willing to discard Park this winter. I don't share that notion. I suspect Park's hand/wrist issues had more to do with his struggles than we know, and there's nothing so far in the careers of Kim and Kang that suggest that Korean stars are automatically overmatched in the American majors.

Meet the new boss. Not so fast

The Twins on Monday morning issued a press release naming Derek Falvey "executive vice president, chief baseball officer." This is not quite the title we had been led to expect ("president of baseball operations"), but it is an impressive amount of verbiage.

The title is of less importance than the authority, and it may be some time before Falvey gets to wield any authority over the Twins operation. He will remain with the Cleveland Indians until their season is finished, and that may last long into the month.

One cannot blame the Indians for insisting on retaining Falvey for the postseason run. By their description, he has been a crucial component of what may be the trickiest part of analytics -- relying the information to the manager, coaches and players in a way that is accessible and persuasive. Disrupting that arrangement now would hurt the Tribe's chances.

But the clock is ticking, and the Twins are left for now with Rob Antony in what must be an awkward interim position. It was reported over the weekend that Antony is out of the running for the No. 2 job under Falvey, but if the Twins hold to their usual timeline of holding organizational meetings in October, it may well be Antony running the show and making the initial decisions on the 40-man roster, arbitration offers and trade targets. Antony reportedly told Paul Molitor's coaches that their status awaits Falvey's arrival. (Lead owner Jim Pohlad has insisted all along that Molitor will be back as the manager in 2017.)

Falvey should be at the helm well before the deadlines for roster assignments and arbitration offers, but it's not optimum for him to step in well into the process.

It's over

Something odd happened to me the other day: The Twins were playing, and I could have had the game on, and I chose not to. I don't know when that last happened, when I consciously chose to go without the game.

I think that speaks to how sour the 2016 season felt to Twins fans in general and to me in particular. I can pick through the rubble and find some encouraging things -- Byron Buxton's September! -- but 103 losses is 103 losses. The Twins won two games in a row Aug. 16-17, and didn't do it again until the final weekend, Oct. 1-2. To go basically a month-and-a-half without even the basis of a winning streak ... uff da.

There have been other get-it-over-with Septembers in Twins history, of course. Some of them even came with the team in contention. 1977, for example: The Twins were 75-58 and 2.5 games out of first place after sweeping a double header on Aug. 29; they went 9-19 the rest of the way and finished 17.5 games behind the Royals. (They won their last two games that year too.) That was the year Rod Carew hit .388, and that's what those of us who were around back then remember of that season, not the collapse.

Maybe some year we'll come to remember 2016 for Brian Dozier's 42 homers or for Buxton's emergence. Maybe we'll remember it as the end of the MacPhail-Ryan era, the second epoch of Twins history. We had the Calvin Griffith years, and the MacPhail-Ryan years, and now ... now we'll see if Derek Falvey can construct a more modern organziation that will last a generation or more. 

And perhaps that's why I was willing to ignore that game last week. Not only did it not matter in the context of 2016, there wasn't much reason to believe it mattered in the context of what follows this offseason.

Pic of the Week

The Miami Marlins left their caps on the pitcher's mound
after Monday's game, their first after the death of
ace Jose Fernandez.

Having a co-worker die is a sorrowful thing. I've been though it a few times myself; we all have or will.

It's never easy, even when you know it's coming. It's even rougher when it comes suddenly, as was the case with Jose Fernandez last weekend. And, probably, rougher still when it comes to one of great talent, as was the case with Fernandez.

It was a goosepimple moment last Monday when Dee Gordon, a left-handed hitter, stepped into the batters box right-handed in tribute to Fernandez for one pitch -- then took his stance in the proper batter's box and hit his first home run of the season.

Boileryard, the BIg Train and the Walking Man: Piling up the losses

The 2016 Twins officially set a new Minnesota standard for futility Friday night with their 103rd loss of the season.

They have a chance to catch or pass the 1949 Senators (104 losses) for third most losses in franchise history this weekend. But since the three worst Washington clubs racked up their godawful records in the days before the 162-game schedule, the 2016 Twins will have a better winning percentage.

The worst teams in franchise history: the 1949 Senators (50-104, .325); the 1909 Senators (42-110, .276); and the 1904 Senators (38-113, .252).

The '49 team is a collection of nonentities. They finished 47 games behind the Yankees. The most recognizable names these decades later would be first baseman Eddie Robinson, who had a pretty solid season; third baseman Eddie Yost, who would go on to earn the nickname "Walking Man" for his ability to draw bases on balls; and Sam Mele, who went on to manage the 1965 Twins, the team with the best record in franchise history.

The '04 team is even less distinguished, as you might expect.; they finished 55.5 games behind the Red Sox. The most interesting names on the roster are the nicknames: Boileryard Clarke, Highball Wilson, Beany Jacobson, Happy Townshend. Beany, Highball and Happy were pitchers who combined to go 10-52; I don't know how happy any of them were that year.

And then there's the '09 Senators, who finished 56 games behind the Tigers. They had a 21-year-old pitcher who threw 294 innings with an ERA of 2.22 who you might have heard of: Walter Johnson. It was the Big Train's second full season in the majors, and one of the worst seasons of his brilliant career (lowest winning percentage, most losses, fourth-worst ERA+). A 2.22 ERA sounds good, that was only the 17th best ERA among the AL's 34 qualifying pitchers in that deadball era. The next year he really tapped into his greatness.

If nothing else, a few minutes gazing at Johnson's stats is time well spent.