Hitting the Foul Pole

UPDATE: Morneau went 1-2 with a double and 3 RBI. The double came with the bases loaded, it cleared the bases, and was apparently an absolute rocket down the line. He was all smiles.

Good news, everyone: Justin Morneau is playing in a game today. He’s getting into a B game against the Pirates, but whether it’s A or B, or the opponent, or whether the team wins or loses, or whether he gets a hit or not, these things are utterly unimportant to the biggest, best news so far in 2011. Justin Morneau has been cleared to play in baseball games, and he’s getting back onto the field. Joe Christensen was first with the news, and was quickly followed by the official announcement by the official Minnesota Twins Twitter feed. Phil Mackey says that the announcement is not official yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to get excited.

No, it’s right and good. Get excited.

This has been a serious concussion — it didn’t seem like it would be at first, but the thing about concussions is that you can’t tell and you never know. Having suffered my share of concussions, I am pulling for Morneau in a way that I never have before even as he established himself as one of the stars of the league for my favorite team.

I always root for comeback stories.* Josh Hamilton’s was a good one, and it has been fun to root for him to ascend to stardom from the depths he found. But Morneau is different. He didn’t choose to plumb those depths, they were instead thrust upon him. And perhaps most importantly, for me, is that I can relate to what he’s going through in a way that I simply cannot for a guy like Hamilton.

* I believe that’s common among Americans.

It’s still springtime, and so it’s still time to dream. With the sun shining brightly in the middle of an impossibly blue sky in the Fort Myers of my mind’s eye, I can still hope that Morneau steps into the box and hasn’t missed a beat. That he can return and be the .345/.437/.618 monster he was last year before he went down. That he will punish those baseballs that got a reprieve from his menacing bat for all these months. That the perceived front office missteps this offseason won’t matter as long Morneau is in the lineup making opposing pitchers quiver in their cleats.

Whatever Morneau says about not needing much time to prepare for the season, I know there will be setbacks and unpromising days. I know there will be 0-for-4 days, probably several. But spring training, while a beautiful thing, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how he does in these games.

What matters is that he’s in them. For today, that’s enough.

And for everyone who has struggled to recover from concussions, this is a lot bigger than baseball.

For them, this is about their lives. And win or lose, Morneau has a chance to be a hero.

Sid Hartman has an article up today with plenty of Morneau quotes that finally make it sound like he’s close to recovery. Enjoy.

“We’ve had more good days than bad days,” Morneau said Sunday. “I don’t know, what we’re waiting for it’s got to be a week of good days or whatever it is, so we’re still waiting for that.

“We haven’t quite gotten to that point yet but it’s been real minimal now. If there’s anything, on a scale of 1-10, [the severity of the effects is] a one. We haven’t had any days like we had back in September or October or November where I didn’t feel like doing anything and if I had a headache I was laying in bed, that type of thing. It’s been good.”

“I think I’d be lying if I said the answer to that was no,” he said. “When I got hit in the head in ’05 [at Seattle], every once in a while I stepped in against a lefty and it would be in the back of my mind. I got over it over a little bit of time and things started to feel better and it was to a point where I didn’t even think about it. I’m sure it will take a little bit of time but we’ll get over that point. That’s why we’re going to wait until it’s 100 percent so we’re not worried about that stuff and I can be the hitter that I’m used to being.”

“It’s close now. Just making sure we’re doing it right,” Morneau said. “We don’t want to come back too soon and then all of a sudden some stuff creeps back up and then we get set back. We want to come back, we want to come back fully 100 percent and not have any setbacks and not have any concerns of if we slide in or if we get hit by a pitch or whatever it is. They tell me when I’m recovered, I’m recovered, and if it happens again it’s a new injury and we’ll know better how to treat it.”

“I’ve been doing everything down here [in Florida] that I normally do in spring training, I just haven’t played in any games yet,” he said. “This is the last hurdle we have to clear and we still got time. Personally, I feel like I only need about two weeks’ of at-bats to get ready for the season, and even 10 days might be pushing it, but that will be close. And if we can go down to the minor league side and it’s a little more lax down there, I can lead off every inning if I want to get nine at-bats in a game or stuff like that. There’s ways to get me ready if I need to get ready.”

“If I was 21 or 22 I think I’d be a little bit more worried or concerned about my timing and all the rest of it,” he said. “But I’ve been around and I’ve had a lot of at-bats now in the big leagues, and I feel like my swing is what it is. It’s kind of to the point where mechanically, it is what it is, and it will just be the timing that needs to come.

“Like I said, those two weeks or 40 at-bats, or whatever number you want to put on it, I think that’s how long it will take, and once we get to that point, I think my swing is what it is and I’m pretty confident in that.”

Last year, Rob Delaney pitched 80 innings at AAA, and struck out 92 batters. His 10.4 K/9 ratio ranks among the best in the entire Twins system. His 2.6 BB/9 ratio is excellent given that high strikeout rate. But he gave up too many hits, at a 9.2 H/9 rate, and it drove his ERA to 4.72; while I’ve watched Delaney and been excited by his 4.93 K/BB ratio in the minors, and his ability to regularly top 10 K/9 (he’s done that at every level of the minors), the Twins have apparently been turned off by … something. Maybe it’s his ERA, or his win-loss record, or maybe they see something in his delivery and don’t think he’s for real.

They finally called him up to the majors, and they let him pitch one inning. He didn’t do well: 1 inning, 2 hits, 1 homer, 1 run, 1 walk, 0 strikeouts. Obviously, that sample size is as small as it gets, and I wouldn’t consider it wise to make a decision based on a single inning.

The Twins, though, designated Delaney for assignment yesterday, to make room on the 40-man roster. It’s possible — but I personally think it’s unlikely — that Delaney will pass through waivers and remain with the organization. The Twins had to be willing to risk losing Delaney in order to acquire the guy they did, so ideally it’d be worth that risk.

Dusty Hughes spent 2010 in Kansas City, earning the major league minimum. I suppose that’s the generous way to describe his contribution to the Royals. He pitched 56 innings, with 5.4 K/9, 3.8 BB/9, and 9.4 H/9; that all added up to an unsustainably non-descript 3.83 ERA.

In his final year at AAA, his numbers were little better. 81 innings, 7.8 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, 8.1 H/9, and a 3.50 ERA. His career K/BB ratio in the minor leagues is 2 K/BB, but that’s trended steadily downward as he’s ascended through the ranks, bottoming at 1.7 K/BB in his two years at AAA — still better than the 1.42 K/BB he had in the majors in 2010.

Here’s what Rany Jazayerli had to say about Dusty Hughes in his Royals Report Card:

Probably the easiest grade on the entire roster. Everything about Dusty Hughes deserves a C grade, starting with the fact that he somehow spent the entire season on the roster without really making an impression on anyone.

He pitched in 57 games for the Royals, but judging from the way they used him, you’d think the only reason he was on the roster was because the Royals were too embarrassed to go without a lefty somewhere in their bullpen, and, well, Hughes was just standing there, so…

He wasn’t used in high-leverage situations at all; just eight times in those 57 games did he pitch in a situation where his “Leverage Index” was 2 or more, and just twice after the All-Star Break. He was kinda used as a lefty specialist, but not really – he faced right-handed batters 54% of the time. He was kinda effective against left-handed hitters, but not really – they batted .260/.351/.323 against him.

Hughes wasn’t bad, not really – he gave up a ton of baserunners (88 in just 56 innings), but minimized the damage by allowing just three homers. But he wasn’t good either. He wasn’t really anything. He was just there.

More power to him that he earned a full year’s worth of a major-league salary, and got a big contribution to his pension. But unless he takes a significant step forward – the easiest path being that he starts throwing more strikes – his job security is almost non-existent. I don’t know what Dusty Hughes really does for the Royals.

This is a particularly non-exciting move.

There are two things about Dusty Hughes that are the least bit interesting: he has an arm, and it’s on the left side of his body.

While the Twins are currently desperate for bullpen arms, it’d be tough to find one more mediocre than this. Plus, they have Glen Perkins available as a lefty out of the pen; I know they don’t like him, but is the plan to have him rot in AAA forever? Is he worse than Dusty Hughes? They also have Brian Duensing, who is fighting for a spot in the rotation but may ultimately find his best success in the bullpen. Is Hughes good enough to mix into the bullpen with Jose Mijares and Duensing? Is it more important to have three bullpen lefties, or to have as many talented arms as possible?

And that’s what I have against the move; the only real complaint about it besides “this is pointless.”

In their effort to bolster their collection of relievers, they risked losing a potentially-talented right handed reliever who could have helped them this year. In return, they got a decidedly-not-talented left handed reliever who could conceivably help them this year — if by “help” you mean “turn a two run deficit into a four run deficit thirty or forty times.” He certainly shouldn’t pitch in close games; even the Royals knew that.

Will Dusty Hughes make the 25 man roster? Probably not. And if Delaney passes through waivers, this move will be promptly forgotten.

But … I just don’t see the point of doing it in the first place.

Well, that is a loaded question.  For three years it isn’t, but foxsports.com’s Ken Rosenthal is reporting the Twins are closing in on a two year deal. I am actually OK with this.  Without Pavano the rotation looks like Liriano-Baker-Duensing-Blackburn-Slowey.  Next on the depth chart is probably Manship.  Those top 5 are injury or badness-prone. Adding depth is almost necessary, whether or not it is Pavano is up for debate, but any Twins fan who is totally comfortable with that top 5 has some serious issues. I don’t think Pavano can repeat his 2010, but if we can get anything close, I say go for it.  I’d hate for them to sit on the money saved on Hardy, and if they pull the trigger on this it looks like they won’t.

Do you want the Twins to keep Pavano, even if it takes a multi-year deal? If not, what should the money be spent on? Bullpen help? A different starting pitcher? Should the front office use this apparent lack of depth to give Kyle Gibson a shot? What say you?

Lately Bill Smith has been making solid moves to bolster the Twins’ chances at a playoff run this year, making it difficult for reasonable fans to criticize him without celestial bodies aligning to bring about an unforeseen situation that would require far more bullpen arms than even Wild Bill would be able to acquire.

Well, there must have been a syzygy of some sort last night, because last night’s 13 inning half-marathon showed just how frayed are the seams of the Twins’ bullpen. Coming into the game, Matt Capps and Brian Fuentes were known to be unavailable — Capps had just pitched two consecutive days, and Fuentes has a bad back for some reason.

So let’s take a look at what happened, shall we?

• Scott Baker pitched just two innings before leaving with elbow tendinitis — his return is unknown.
• Manship pitched well, leaving with a 3 run lead.
• Rauch pitched well too, leaving with a 4 run lead through 7 innings.
• Flores came in, despite the fact that he’d pitched in two consecutive games — but he’s not a Closer, so his arm doesn’t need to be protected. He got one out and gave up one hit, and his night was done after 7 pitches.
• Guerrier came in,* despite the fact that he’d pitched in two consecutive games — but he’s not a Closer, so his arm doesn’t need to be protected. He’s also been struggling through one of his patented dead-arm periods (which he got because he’s been pitching way too often). He got lit up, and by the time he left, the lead was gone.
• Crain came in, despite the fact that he’d pitched in two consecutive games — but he’s not a Closer, so his arm doesn’t need to be protected. He’s pitched well lately, but if there’s one thing Gardy loves doing to a guy who’s pitching well, it’s ride him until his arm falls off. So enjoy that, Crain. Oh, and Crain gave up a home run, and the last Twins lead of the night was gone.
• Having exhausted all the available options in the bullpen, the Twins went with the only strategy that made sense. Continuing to preserve a veteran Closer at the expense of young starters! Duensing came in despite having pitched on Tuesday. One day’s rest, baby! That’s never turned into a long term problem for a team in the past!
• Then they needed another pitcher, so finally they brought in — no, wait, never mind. They didn’t go to Capps. Instead, they went with Friday night’s starter, Nick Blackburn, who mercifully lost the game.

* Scott Ullger was managing at for the late innings, because Gardy had been ejected earlier in the game by Joe West, who continues to be very adamant that nobody can question any of his myriad terrible calls. I’m guessing Ullger was thinking, “What would Gardy do in this situation? I know! Put in Guerrier!” It worked about as well as you’d have guessed.

So the Twins managed to keep Fuentes and Capps out of the game, preserving the health of their pair of mercenary Closers at the expense of everyone else on the pitching staff, who have also been dramatically overworked in recent days. And if you noticed a pattern up there, I wouldn’t call you crazy. It seems like every pitcher in the bullpen has been used in every game — Gardy must have heard about this newfound vaunted bullpen depth, and forgot that it doesn’t really matter whether you have 3 guys or 8 guys if they’re all exhausted all the time. But it didn’t have to be this way, Smithers; no, it didn’t have to be this way at all.

Apparently, Gardy had been “begging” Bill Smith for bullpen help, made possible by the September 1 roster expansion. I don’t know exactly why Smith was reticent to do it, but here are two possibilities:

Possibility The First: Gardy said he’d been trying to get ahold of him for the last two days. So maybe Smith is simply incommunicado. If true, that’s pretty bad.

Possibility The Second: Bill Smith is waiting until the Rochester Red Wings season is over before taking away their most talented relievers. (I saw this a few days ago, but can’t find the link to it right now. Damn internet.) If this is true, and Smith values AAA wins as much as he values MLB-pennant-race wins, that’s really bad.

So basically, there wasn’t any excuse not to have more relievers in the bullpen. At least Slama and Burnett, maybe Perkins and Neshek and Swarzak. There are warm bodies waiting in AAA, and they could have been out in the bullpen last night if Bill Smith had called for them.

And, because Blackburn was wasted in relief the night before his scheduled start, the Twins needed to find another starter for Friday night. Who should they go with? Pavano? No, they won’t move him up a day. Swarzak? Too bad, he started on Wednesday. Perkins? Too bad, he pitched two innings in relief on Thursday.

Say hello to your Friday night starter: Matt Fox.

Who the hell is that?, I hear you asking. Well, good question. The Twins drafted him in the 1st round back in 2004, and here are his AAA numbers this year: 123 IP, 3.95 ERA, 7.6 K/9, 3.7 BB/9, 9.1 H/9, 1.2 HR/9. For what it’s worth, every single one of those peripherals has trended in the wrong direction at each level throughout the minors. His stuff just doesn’t play at the upper levels.

Put another way, Anthony Swarzak’s AAA numbers look like this: 231.1 IP, 4.28 ERA, 5.4 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 10.0 H/9, 0.8 HR/9. So Fox has performed better than Swarzak, but Swarzak’s just 24 and still a prospect — Fox is 27 and on the brink of not being a prospect any more.

Matt Fox is 27 years old, doesn’t have much in the way of stuff, doesn’t have a track record of good performance in the minors, and is pretty clearly not a prospect. Good for him for making it to the majors.

But it took a whole lot of random, disconnected events all converging at once to get him this chance. Even if he makes the most of it, he probably won’t stick around.

So hopefully he enjoys himself while he’s here.

And hopefully Bill Smith has learned that he should never let this happen again.

Well, that wasn’t very much fun.  But this is what we signed up for, right? Baseball in the elements.  MLB raincheck policy is kind of a bummer, but logistically, this was the only move they could make.  It would have been near impossible to get everyone in for the last 4 innings tomorrow afternoon, then out in time for the 6pm ticket holders.  There is also apparently some huge event today at Target Center that is supposed to draw 20 thousand people.   It is unfortunate that this had to happen during a game where ticket prices were probably at their highest, but as Forrest Gump said “Shit happens”.

Duensing is scheduled to being the sixth at 4pm tonight, and hopefully the bats come alive and the Twins can pull out two victories today.

Last night after the Twins suffered a barely-watchable sweep by the Red Sox, they sent Jeff Manship back down to AAA (that was a lengthy stint, wasn’t it?), and called up Trevor Plouffe for the first time. So just who is Trevor Plouffe?

Here’s what Aaron Gleeman had to say about him during the offseason, when he ranked Plouffe as the Twins’ 27th best prospect:

Trevor Plouffe had been promoted very aggressively since the Twins took him out of high school in the first round of the 2004 draft, but pushing him through the system despite the lack of any major offensive development now leaves him as a 24-year-old about to spend a third straight season at Rochester. He has six seasons under his belt, including 1,553 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A, yet has never posted even a .750 OPS at any level and owns a .256/.318/.385 career line.

His production has been remarkably consistent in its mediocrity, with zero real strides made in any key areas, and Plouffe’s lack of progress at the plate is especially damaging because he’s no sure thing to be an asset defensively at shortstop. His glove gets mixed reviews and while Plouffe played exclusively shortstop last year the Twins used him at third base extensively in 2008. If he’s not at least an average defensive shortstop in the majors it’s tough to see Plouffe having much value.

Plouffe is certainly still young enough for something to click offensively, but as the Twins saw with Luis Rivas and could be seeing with Delmon Young at some point actual production takes precedence over youth. He’s about to enter his seventh professional season and fourth straight year in the high minors, but aside from his age and status as a former first-round pick Plouffe has shown almost no reason for optimism. My guess is that by this time next year he’ll either be in the majors or off the 40-man roster.

Despite being a former first round pick, Plouffe pretty clearly wasn’t on the verge of breaking down the door to the major league roster when the season started. However, we’ve seen this story before: first round draft pick, doesn’t hit much all the way through the minors, then something clicks during a brief period at AAA and that success immediately translates to the majors. (I call it “The Denard Story,” but that’s just a working title.) Of course, we’ve also seen the “first round draft pick never makes anything of himself and washes out of the league eventually” story play out plenty of times. It’s not clear which track Plouffe is on.

Then JJ Hardy got injured, and it only took a couple of days for my Twitter feed to start exploding with excitement for Trevor Plouffe and myriad people calling for him to be called up. I’ve tried to go back and grab some of those tweets, but Twitter isn’t letting me look more than 5 days into the past. Stupid internet.

It’s worth pointing out that Matt Tolbert’s career minor league line is .277/.336/.400, considerably better than Plouffe’s. Why are people getting so excited about a guy who hit even worse than Tolbert in the minors? Sure, this year he hit .303/.367/.493 at AAA, but that’s only 38 games! Are we really getting excited about 38 games now?

Plouffe might have a future with the Twins, and he might not. Maybe Gleeman was right, and the Twins had decided that if Plouffe doesn’t show something that this is his final year in the organization; if that’s the case, it certainly makes sense that they’d see what he’s got, especially while he’s hot. He did, after all, get a hit off Strasburg.

He’s played the lion’s share of his time at SS, but has played at both 2B and 3B. If it starts looking like Plouffe’s bat is real, maybe he’ll replace Tolbert for the rest of this season, and maybe even Punto in 2011. I haven’t heard great reports about his defense at short, so maybe he won’t stick there; maybe he’ll replace Hudson in 2011. Maybe he’ll be gone.

Normally I’m excited to see the next product of the Twins’ talent pipeline. And for years, Plouffe was supposed to be “the shortstop of the future!” But from where I’m sitting, his star is shining quite a bit less brightly than it once did, and I don’t find myself all that thrilled. Maybe it’s because even with Plouffe’s callup, the roster still has Harris, Punto, Tolbert, and Casilla, who will presumably all get playing time ahead of Plouffe. So Trevor: I hope you like sitting on the bench for 3 games while the guy playing instead of you goes 0-4 every day until you get sent back down. Because I’m guessing that’s Gardy’s plan.

Then again, maybe this is just part of Plouffe’s story. Span was “the center fielder of the future!” for years, while he sucked at every level of the minors, and by the time he got to the top of the farm system he looked like a washout and I was calling him “Denard F’ing Span,” as if he had no chance to become a viable major leaguer. You never know.

So hopefully his .860 OPS isn’t a fluke and he gets some playing time and the Twins can reap some more fruit from the pipeline. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

The Twins announcedtoday that pitcher Gelnn Perkins, and catcher Wilson Ramos will start the season at AAA.  I don’t think anyone is surprised by the Perkins news, he has a bad attitude and an arm to match.  The hotter topic is Wilson Ramos. My twitter feed blew up yesterday with various people arguing for and against using Ramos as Mauer’s backup for a month.  I am personally in the camp that believes Ramos needs to play everyday, and he will not do that with the Twins.  Yes, Drew Butera does suck immensely, but it is the right move for a few weeks, a month at most.  Some are assuming that Ramos will be a huge asset as a right handed pinch hitter late in close games.  Can we really assume a player with exactly zero major league at bats can come in and hit off of elite, late inning AL relievers?  I don’t think we can. Thome crushes righties, and Harris hits lefites well enough to give us a suitable stable of pinch hitters for Gardy to pull from. 

Starting Ramos’ arbitration clock is only one of the reasons (and a secondary one at that) he should start the season in Rochester. If he comes up and struggles, who knows what that will do to his confidence.  He has had zero plate appearances above AA, so why rush him? If anyone argues that “Mauer only had limited at bats in AA before making the majors!”, I will punch you through the computer.  Mauer was brought up to be the starter, not a backup.  Plus,  Ramos isn’t the prospect Mauer was.    What does everyone think of this hotly contested roster move?  Gardy said it was a tough decision, and I’m sure it was.  It was the right one, though.

In other news, Pat Neshek has claimed a bullpen spot. That is good news as he has looked good this spring. I don’t think there is much argument here, so I won’t waste anymore time on it.

According to Ken Rosenthal’s twitter feed, the Twins are going to use a “closer by committee” to start the season.  I think what this really means is they will use the start of the season as kind of an open audition.  If someone stands out they will close for the rest of the season, if not Bill Smith will have to make a trade. I think the best news to come out of this is that they won’t be using Liriano.  That issue was addressed the other day on this site, so I won’t get into it.

In other news, Jacque Jones and Matt Tolbert were told they will not start the season on the 25 man roster. I don’t think this comes as a surprise to anyone.  While he had a good spring, Jones was considered a long shot to make the team out of spring training.  The stars would have had to align perfectly for Tolbert to make the team.  Since Casilla is out of options, there was little doubt that the reserve infielder spot was going to Alexi.  I’m kind of worried that the Twins won’t have a real backup centerfielder, that defense could get pretty ugly if it consists of Young, Kubel, and Cuddyer.  And am I the only one who doesn’t like the idea of NIck Punto playing centerfield on some days?

What do you guys think of this “closer by committee”?  What do you think of Tolbert and Jones starting the season in Rochester?

The Twins have agreed to terms with starting catcher Joe Mauer. The deal is reportedly 8 years, $184 million with a full no trade clause.   A press conference is scheduled for Monday night at the Twins complex in Ft. Myers. This is great news people.  The average annual value is $23 million, a hair more than Texiera is making in New York.  If there was a hometown discount, there wasn’t much of one.  I would imagine he would be getting $25ish from the New York/Boston team. 8 years is a long time, but it will cover Mauer’s age 28-35 seasons which are his prime years.

What does everyone else think?  We will break it down further once more details come out at the press conference tomorrow.

Bad news, everyone!

Joe Nathan played catch with Rick Anderson this morning, to determine if he could pitch through his injury and get by without having Tommy John surgery. His conclusion? No.

“Didn’t go like we hoped,” Nathan said. “We knew it was a long shot, but what this did do is clear my head. Definitely was no gray area. Definitely was on the black side, where it didn’t go as well as we like, and we know now we’re going to have to go in and get some surgery done, get this thing fixed up.”

Joe Christensen watched the throwing session, and said Nathan was “making some strong throws before it ended,” and that he couldn’t tell whether it had gone badly.

“As we kept throwing, it became clear that it was getting harder and harder to play catch,” Nathan said. “It became clear that it didn’t feel great. This was going to be an easy answer for me to know I wouldn’t be able to pitch without getting this thing taken care of.”

I’m glad there’s no gray area for him in this, and that it was such an easy decision. This is not something Nathan should be second-guessed about all summer, every time a lesser reliever struggles in the 9th inning. I think we all knew this had to be done, and this just makes it official.

Given that the estimated recovery time is 12 months, we now await the news as to when he’s having the surgery; Nathan himself said “as soon as possible,” and hopefully he’s going by his own definition of the words “soon” and “possible,” rather than the Twins’ version which would undoubtedly have him wait until November to have the surgery.