More roster moves and a new coach

One day of the Handbook and back to news. The Twins front office, after taking the weekend off, got back to the roster shuffle on Monday, clearing three more spots on the 40-man roster and filling out their coaching staff.

• Pitcher Nik Turley was claimed on waivers by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
• Catcher Chris Gimenez and pitcher Ryan O'Rourke were outrighted.

None of these cuts were particularly surprising.

O'Rourke was still listed on the Twins website as of Monday afternoon as being on the 60-day disabled list, but outrighted is outrighted. He's coming off Tommy John surgery, and I think he'll likely stay with the Twins organization.

Gimenez has been through this drill repeatedly.; I wouldn't be surprised to see him back in training camp with the Twins, but personally I'd prefer to see Mitch Garver get the backup catching job.

Turley had a nice season in Rochester, but showed nothing useful in the majors.

Counting the three pitchers remaining on the 60-day DL, the Twins now have 34 players listed on the 40.

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We're excited to welcome our new bench coach, Derek Shelton!

2018 marks Shelton's 14th season as a coach at the major league level. pic.twitter.com/LFhgpz821g

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) November 6, 2017

Shelton was the "quality control coach" for Toronto last year after 11 seasons as hitting coach with Tampa Bay and Cleveland. He's also managed in the minors in the Yankees system. Another guy who's been around a number of sabermetically-oriented organizations.

From this Rhett Bollinger piece on Shelton's hiring, an explaination of what a qaulity control coach is:

"The job description was fairly fluid," Shelton said. "Day to day, there was analytical stuff and advance scouting reports. I helped with hitting because that's my background, but I integrated into defense more than I had at the Major League level. And there was relationships with the Minor League coordinators about developmental roles. The job itself was ever-changing, and I looked at it as growth for me, especially because the bench-coach role was something I was looking to transition into."

Wonder how long it will take me to refer to him in the blog (or the column) as Blake.

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Sad news: Former Twins coach Rick Stelmaszek, one of the true characters in the game, has lost his battle with cancer. He was 69.

— LaVelle E. Neal III (@LaVelleNeal) November 6, 2017

Rest in peace, Stelly. He lasted a long time on the Twins staff -- 32 years under five different managers -- but he was pretty obviously in rough shape last summer.

From the Handbook: Mauer and the Hall of Fame

The annual Bill James Handbook arrived last week in my mailbox -- year 29 and counting of its publication. I have 'em all, which is probably indicative of something wrong with me, but so be it.

The bulk of the book -- identified in the table of contents as the Career Register -- is, frankly, obsolete. When the Handbook begin, it served as an annual update to the Baseball Encyclopedia, the best place to find accurate answers to such questions as "how many career homers has Kent Hrbek hit?" Today Baseball Reference has all those stats and more online. And if the Career Register were still all the Handbook offered, I probably wouldn't still be buying it.

But this isn't 1989, and there's a lot more in it. This year -- if only to give me an organizing principle to guide my persual of this reference work -- I'm going to go through the non-Regster portions, front to back, and examine something Twins-related in it. Some days there'll be news that supercedes this project. It may take to spring training to finish.

We start, as the book does, with Bill James' reworking of his Hall of Fame Monitor system. This, as James takes pains to point out, isn't about who should be selected for Cooperstown, but about identifiing the players who are compiling the things that typically get players selected for Cooperstown. It's a prediction system based on previous selections, a tracking system. James devised the Monitor almost 40 years ago, there's been dozens of additional honorees, and he has updated the system.

Players get points as they reach accomplishments "typical" of Hall of Fame players. The point scale is set up to balance at 100 -- a player scores 100 on the Monitor, he's probably done enough to get into the Hall. If he's under 100, he probably hasn't. The"gray area" -- in which players may get in and may not -- is roughly 80 to 130. Again, it's not about who should be in, but about who's doing things that the ever-changing selection process has valued in the past.

So ... Joe Mauer. Mauer is listed, for what should be obvious reasons, as a catcher for this purpose, even though he hasn't caught since 2013. His bounceback 2017 gave him his first real boost in the Monitor since his move to first base.

Mauer stands at 89 on the revised Monitor, which, as it happens, is the same score as Carlton Fisk (enshrined). He's six points ahead of Ted Simmons, eight up on Thurmon Munson, 13 ahead of the still-active Yadier Molina, none of whom are in.

Mauer added four points to his total in 2017, which equals his total from the previous three seasons put together. Let's imagine that:

• he has another such season in 2018 and
• decides to retire at age 35.

That would leave him with 93 Monitor points. That might suffice to get him into Cooperstown; it might not.

Pic of the Week

World Series MVP George Springer rides in the Astros'
victory parade through downtown Houston on Friday.

The Twins drafted George Springer out of high school in 2008 but didn't sign him. He went to his homestate university (UConn) and was a first-round pick of the Astros three years later.

Worked out pretty well for him.

This concludes the Pic of the Week theme for the year. Next week I'll resume the Sunday Funnies -- baseball tales that may or may not be true but are at least a bit amusing.

Reducing the 40

Five Twins became free agents Friday. Later the Twins announced that three others had been removed from the 40-man roster.

There will be more deletions, and additions, to come.

The free agents are pitchers Matt Belisle, Bartolo Colon, Dillon Gee, Glen Perkins and Hector Santiago. Multi-position guy Niko Goodrum cleared waivers and was outrighted; I think he's been in the organization long enough to opt for free agency. Pitcher Randy Rosario was claimed by the Cubs, outfielder Daniel Palka by the White Sox.

If there is any surprise here, it's that this wave of 40-man roster deletions wasn't more extensive. Somehow the ax missed Buddy Boshers, Michael Tonkin and Nik Turley; I can't imagine they will make it through the winter unscathed.

I don't think Chris Gimenez has ever gone through a winter on a 40-man roster. And I expect that at some point Kennys Vargas will wind up with a deal to play in Korea or Japan.

My count has 18 pitchers, three catchers, six infielders, six oufielders and one designated hitter remaining on the 40 as of this morning -- plus four pitchers on the 60-day disabled list who must either be returned to the 40 or cut loose (J.T. Chargois, Phil Hughes, Trevor May and Ryan ORourke). Add those four back, and it's at 38. That's too tight for all the prospects who must either be added to the 40 or exposed to the Rule 5 draft next month.

For me, Rosario was the most interesting loss. I saw him pitch in Cedar Rapids in 2015 and thought he had Perkins-like stuff -- mid 90s fastball and a quality slider. It was easy to envision him as a bullpen piece. And he still has an option left.

But he had a down year in Double A this year and did nothing useful in a brief callup in midsummer. Gabriel Moya has certainly passed him as a lefty bullpen option.

Still, the raw material is there. The Cubs claimed him on waivers, which is interesting. Rosario isn't good enough for the Twins 40-man roster, but he is for the Cubs. At least until they try to sneak him through waivers themselves.

Notes, quotes and comment (into the offseason)

The Twins announced Thursday that Miguel Sano, still troubled by a stress reaction in his left shin, will have surgery on Nov. 13 to install a titanium rod. This is expected to solve the leg problem but complicate his workout/weight reduction plans.

Also noted in the above linked story from the Pioneer Press: Outfielder Zack Granite has already had hernia surgery.

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I noted earlier reports that Joe Vavra and Rick Anderson would rejoin Ron Gardenhire in Detroit. A third standby of Gardy's old Twins staff will be there too, but not Scott Ullger, as I'd half-jested. Steve Liddle, dropped by the Twins after the 2012 season, will be the Tigers bench coach.

Vavra's position was announced by the Tigers as "quality assurance coach," a vague and meaningless term to me. Presumably Gardenhire, Vavra and the Tigers front office know what he's supposed to do, and if so my ignorance is perfectly acceptable.

But there's a pretty good chance there will be little "quality" to assure from the rebuilding Tigers in 2018.

Notes, quotes and comment (Astros are champs edition)

Game Seven -- Game Six also, really -- was something of an anticlimax. With the weather in Chevez Ravine back to normal, the venerable yard played normal, and the hitting was muted once Dave Roberts pulled Yu Darvish.

I've written this repeatedly over the years that I've been commenting on baseball: Baseball is a liquid; it takes the shape of its container. Dodger Stadium -- really, all the California major league parks -- is a pitcher's park, particularly for night games. It played differently for the first two games because of the heat.

So the wild comebacks that marked the first five games of the Series were absent at the end. Which is fine by me. Game Five was wild, entertaining and amazing, but I wouldn't like a daily diet of it.

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Give credit to A.J. Hinch, the Houston manager, who devised a short-term workaround to a reality that I suspect many managers would have ignored: His season-long preferred back-of-the-bullpen options were ineffective.

Hinch closed out the Yankees in the ALCS with starter Lance McCullers Jr. working four innings in relief of Charlie Morton. He closed out Game 3 of the World Series with Brad Peacock firing 3.2 innings in relief of McCullers. And in Wednesday's finale, Morton threw four innings, again in relief of McCullers (and others).

Using starters as relievers in the postseason isn't particularly inventive. It's sticking with them in the ninth that is unusual. Neither McCullers nor Peacock had a major league save in their careers until these long outings. Nor has Morton, who was credited with the win rather than the save for his four inning stint Wednesday.

Most managers would have reflexively thanked those guys after the eighth and waved in the closer. And the way Ken Giles collapsed this month (and, really. Chris Devenski as well), that probably wouldn't have worked.

Hinch's workaround harkened to the bygone era of doubleheaders and train travel, when the schedule really didn't allow managers to use set rotations. Most teams had one or two pitchers who were strictly starters and everybody else was a swing man. That practice died out a half-century or so ago. Hinch revived it out of necessity; I can't imagine that he'd want to try it for a full season.

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That said, I also suspect that the Astros' offseason will include a massive overhaul of their relief corps. Giles had such a miserable postseason (11.74 ERA in seven outings) that even the Astros championship won't erase the memories.

The closer era has been marked by a number of careers permanently marred by October failures, from Donnie Moore and Calvin Scharaldi to Matt Williams to Byung-Hyng Kim to Neftali Feliz. Giles may well prove to be the next addition to that list. I wouldn't be surprised if the Astros decide to trade him away even at a discount.

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#OldFriends Dept.: Francisco Liriano faced two hitters in this World Series and got them both out.  Juan Centeno never got into a game and will be a pretty good trivia answer someday.

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A good, satisfying World Series between two quality teams. Only 105 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Notes, quotes and comment (Game Six edition)

And so there will be a Game Seven. Justin Verlander wasn't bad, but he cracked for two runs in the sixth and that was all the Dodgers needed, although they got more off the Houston bullpen.

This, I believed coming into the game, was the Astros' best opportunity to wrap up the series, Verlander being the workhorse that could protect the softness of the late-inning bullpen. It didn't work.

The good news for Houston: The Astros avoided using either Lance McCullers Jr or Brad Peacock. McCullers will start Game Seven tonight. Peacock is quite likely his tag-team starter, although Charlie Morton and Dallas Kuechel will be available.

And I can't shake the notion that Verlander might declare himself ready to pull a Randy Johnson, available to relieve on no-days rest.

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Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was certainly consistent. Rich Hill was allowed to throw just 58 pitches, and then in came Kenta Maeda for the fourth time in the series and Brandon Morrow for the sixth. And Kenley Jansen pitched the final two innings.

The LA bullpen has been worn to a frazzle by a month of short starts. Monday's off day appears to have revitalized Maeda, Morrow and Jansen, but Roberts certainly isn't going to give Yu Darvish a long leash in Game Seven -- and there isn't an intervening off day for his bullpen crew.

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If (when) Morrow pitches tonight, he will tie Darold Knowles, a left-handed reliever of my youth, for the record in games pitched in one World Series. Knowles worked in all seven games of the 1973 series for Oakland against the Mets. Indeed, he got the final out -- relieved Rollie Fingers with two outs and a man on with a 5-2 lead after Fingers had gone 3.1 innings and got a popup to end it.

Knowles pitched for all three of the World Series seasons of the Mustache Gang dynasty in Oakland (1972-74), but the only Series he actually appeared in was the 1973 one. Seven games, 6.1 innings, one unearned run allowed, two saves.

His career is fun to look at. In 1970, for example, pitching for the Washington Senators (and managed by Ted Williams) he had 27 saves and a 2.09 ERA -- and went 2-14. One factor in that record is probably the nine unearned runs charged to him, which is a lot.

Fingers led the A's in innings pitched in that 1973 series, 13.2 -- one more out than Catfish Hunter recorded. And Tug McGraw, the Mets' top fireman, also threw 13.2 innings. (Tom Seaver and Jon Matlack each worked more innings than McGraw, however). Ken Holtzman started three games for the A's and pitched a total of 10.2 innings. Short starts indeed.

Moral of story: Bullpenning in the World Series is not new. But nobody expected Fingers, McGraw and Knowles to throw with the velocity demanded of Jansen, Morrow and Ken Giles, and the playoffs didn't stretch out for a full month.