Building a ball park

Twin Cities Business's story on the construction of Target Field details why it was "the most difficult urban ballpark site" in the long sports arena experience of the architecture firm.

A few nuggets:

• The park sits on 8.5 acres of land — but seen from overhead, it mushrooms to 10.5 acres, because it is literally suspended over railroad tracks and a freeway.
  
• The structure was built from the inside out, because the cranes couldn't go outside.
  
• Work had to be halted when Burlington Northern's freight trains went past — seven to 14 times a day.
  

It's a neat read.

Delmon Young and spring optimism

Ah, spring training and optimism. You can't have one without the other.

Which doesn't mean the optimism is always unjustifiable. It does mean we are wise to think about it a bit before buying into it.

Today's happy-happy-joy-joy comes via Peter Gammons and his new part-time gig writing for MLB.com:

Down the road in Fort Myers, Fla., at Twins camp, (B.J.) Upton's former teammate and fellow victim of unlimited expectations, Delmon Young, is another changed face.

"When have you ever seen me smiling this much?" Young asked. Never. He looks 17 again. ...

This winter, Young worked hard on conditioning, as well as lifestyle. He's dropped more than 35 pounds, his face looks like that of a teenager, and he looks like a new player.

"I feel as if I'm a new player," said Young, who is recognized as highly intelligent by his teammates. "I think I'm finally where I thought I should be five years ago."

OK. Five years ago Young was 19 and winning the MVP award in the Double-A Southern League off a half season of play, which got him named Baseball America's minor league player of the year.

He has never really lived up to that promise, but the promise remains. I don't know if the weight loss is going to make him a better defensive outfielder, but it might. He had a strong second half last season — he hit .300 with a .502 slugging percentage after the All-Star break.

And he's only 24. Time is still on his side.

That said, a breakout season would be a lot more likely if he'd stop swinging at almost every first pitch

The non-roster outfielders

Continuing my obsession with the 25th spot on the Twins roster — specifically my belief, as described in the Monday print column, that the Twins need a true outfielder on the bench more than they need a second infielder:

Jacque Jones is not the only non-roster outfielder in major league camp. (Major league camp includes the 40 players on the roster and selected players with minor-league contracts. Most of the minor leaguers are down the street in the minor league complex, or will be when they report.)

Also invited: Ben Revere, the Twins' 2007 first-round draft pick; Rene Tosoni, MVP of the 2009 Futures Game; Juan Portes, who hit .297 in Double-A last season; Brian Dinkleman, who has spent most of his minor league career playing second base but started seeing time in left field last season; and Chris Parmelee, first round pick in 2006. (Dinkleman and Portes are the two on the left in the above photo, along with Jason Kubel, Denard Span and Delmon Young.)

Parmelee is a slow power hitter, splits his time between first base and an outfield corner, and hasn't cracked Double-A yet. He's not a candidate to play center field.

Dinkleman played in Double A last season, but his limited outfield experience has been in a corner as well. (He appears to hit well enough to be a possible 2B down the road; that the Twins are testing him as an outfielder suggests that they're not thrilled with his defense. That he was left off the 40 this winter and wasn't taken by another organization suggests the same.) Not a candidate.

Portes has bounced from position to position — second base, third base, all three outfield spots — and it's unclear from this distance how adept he is at any of them. As a hitter, he profiles as a reserve outfielder — a singles and doubles hitter, good average but not a lot of power — but whether he's a guy they want to play much in center, I doubt the Twins know. That's probably why he got an invite, so the coaching staff can form a judgment on his suitability. He's got a chance to be an injury callup this year.

Revere gets more pub than the rest of this crew put together, partly because he was a surprise pick in 2007, partly because he threatened to hit .400 in low A ball in 2008 (he ended a .379). He's a shrimp (listed at 5-8, 166) and the consensus is that he's never going to hit for power. He had just 19 extra-base hits last season in high A ball, and while the Fort Myers park saps power, that's not much. Were this a year from now, I'd figure him to be the front-runner for the reserve job. But he hasn't seen Double-A yet, and he's not making the big-league roster this spring — or probably at all this year.

Tosoni looks like a bit of a tweener — maybe not enough power to be a regular in an outfield corner, maybe not fast enough to be a full-time center fielder — certainly not in a system with Denard Span, Revere, Joe Benson and Aaron Hicks. Sounds like a fourth outfielder type to me. Played all season at Double-A, with more playing time than Portes. Turns 24 in July. He's from Canada, and last year was his first season playing anything resembling a full schedule.

If they go with a fourth outfielder from the players now in camp, I rank the likelihood Jones, Tosoni, and nobody. Everybody on that list got something to prove, and spring training may not prove anything.

A backup catcher

Somewhere around the mid-'80s I decided that the best job in baseball was that of backup catcher. They last forever, and the expectations are low.

Of course, it's not that easy to get the job.

I haven't attempted to prove this statistically, but it's my notion that the Twins organization generates a lot of career backup catchers. One such is Chad Moeller, now with the Baltimore Orioles. (Moeller's the tall guy in the photo; the other is Dave Trembley, the Baltimore manager.) Moeller started his career in the Twins system, caught briefly for them in the majors (48 games in 2000), and is now with the Baltimore Orioles, his seventh major league team.

Here, from the New York Times, is Moeller on some of the various pitchers he's handled over the years. I'm struck by the difference between Brad Radke and Curt Schilling. Radke was about keeping it simple, Schilling anything but.

It worked for each.

'I've always been a slow starter'

I got snarky about Jacque Jones' chances at Twins training camp in Monday's print column: " ... this tryout is likely the baseball equivalent of a pity date."

Jones, of course, is more optimistic — he has to be. From an MLB.com story last week:

"I don't know what happened, other than I've always been a slow starter. If I had hit .210 the year before and .220 the year before that, I would have been able to accept it and say 'OK, I can't play. I can't do it.' But it was weird -- nine straight years in the big leagues of putting up some decent numbers, and one bad month and now I can't play anymore."

The "I've always been a slow starter" line is a time-honored veterans excuse and often of dubious accuracy. This is one of those cases.

According to Baseball Reference.com's monthly splits, March/April has hardly been unkind to Jones over the course of his career: .287/.341/.450. Those slash lines are all above his career marks.

Poll results

Thirty-eight participants in the debut poll of 2010.

Thirty-two (84 percent) pick the Twins to win the AL Central division title. Three apiece (7 percent) picked the White Sox or Tigers. Zero (0 percent) picked the Indians or Royals.

From this I deduce that the majority of my respondents are Twins fans. Or, as an alternative deduction, that the ChiSox or Tiger fans reading this are realistic.

New poll up.

No news is good news

The Twins pitchers and catchers have been in camp almost a week, and the biggest development has been no development.

As in no pitchers tossing a few balls and clutching their elbows.

Oh, Loek Van Mil, the 7-foot-1 Dutch pitcher who finished last season in Double A, has some shoulder tenderness and is being held back a bit. And Kevin Slowey (above) figures his wrist is never going to feel exactly the same now that it has two screws inserted into it. But that's about it.

Last spring Pat Neshek didn't even make it to camp, and Boof Bonser was barely there before he needed surgery. And before the season started, Scott Baker was on the shelf.

And that's rather the norm for pitchers. There's a reason for the old adage about how you never have too much pitching. They get hurt.

But it's a plus that they're not coming to camp hurt this spring.