Post Season Roster Dark Horse

UPDATE: I would have written a congratulatory article about the Twins clinching last night but I think enough voices out there have a better handle on that than me. It was great to watch though, and it's kind of surreal to not have to worry about the hunt for October when there's actually still baseball left to be played. Over at Baseballism, my buddy Francisco lends his congratulations to our squad for their clinch last night and reflects on what a great year the Twins have put together. He's one of the most lucid and intelligent baseball afficionados I get to interact with on a regular basis so be sure to add his blog to your daily reads!

There's been plenty of speculation around our blogosphere about who will and who won't make the post-season roster. Questions remain about who exactly will be cut to whittle down to the stated 11-man pitching staff. The biggest elephant in the room is obviously the health of Justin Morneau and whether he will be around as a potent bench threat for us in October.

The general assumption though is that if Morneau isn't back that Jose Morales comes off our bench as a pinch-hitting/3rd catcher option. I'm a little skeptical.

Morales has been on the backburner all year and except for Mauer's recent tweaked knee he's barely seen the light of day in a game. In the microcosm of the postseason there's no reason to waste a roster spot on someone who will never get in a game and a 3rd catcher who can occasionally get a single really doesn't do any good for us. Besides, as Seth Stohs pointed out on his Twins Centric column -- who in our lineup do you plan on pinch-hitting for anyway?

So who is the final bench spot going to?

Ben Revere.

***I'll excuse you while you laugh and disagree with me***

Think about it though -- our bench will not be made of pinch-hitters. It will be made up of defensive replacements and speedsters who will all come in late in the game pinch-running for our slow-plodding starters.

Look at that! Even the shutter can't keep up to him!

This isn't a new concept. In fact, the 2002 World Champion Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim followed the same formula with their fresh-faced rookie: Chone Figgins.

Figgins was a "September" call-up (end of August really) who was used in all of 15 games the last few weeks of the season and was almost unilaterally implemented as a late-inning speedster/defensive replacement. It didn't matter that his batting average was a miniscule .167 that season because he was simply there to wreak havoc on the basepaths.

In fact, the minor league slash line of '02 Figgins is almost identical to Revere's minor league slash from this year, except Figgins had a little bit more power.

Figgins: .305/.364/.466 with 39 SBs

Revere: .305/.371/.363 with 36 SBs

Revere is really the best pure threat on the basepaths that we have on our roster. We all know Span's baserunning gaffes and penchant for getting picked off. Punto is coming off a tweaked hamstring injury (and I'm sure we remember his baserunning blunders from last postseason as well...). And for how fast Casilla is he only has 5 SBs all season.

It was a nice story to call Revere up this September, something for people to get excited about certainly. But there had to be more of a reason to bring him up then just getting him a little playing time with the Major League club. We didn't need to exercise an option year yet or throw Matt Fox on waivers for someone we weren't planning on implementing.

September has been and continues to be an audition for Ben Revere's postseason debut. He is our dark horse and our secret weapon in October.

Florida, Day 6 (Standing Room Only)

THURSDAY, MARCH 4th

This morning was the visitation for my grandfather before the funeral tomorrow, so it wasn't really a baseball day -- even if I had time to make it up to Ft. Myers afterwards I don't think it was in me to make the trip.

Thankfully it was a night game to kick off the season for the Twins so I was able to relax most of the afternoon before we made the trip up Tamiami Trail to City of Palms Park. I felt this kind of nervous giddiness the whole way -- this wasn't just a baseball game, this was the first game of the season. True it was about as meaningless as you could imagine (unless you really really want the Mayor's Cup), but there's just something exciting about baseball season starting, and the fact that it was outdoor night baseball is just magical.

But it makes my pictures blurry.... I need a new camera

We had four standing room only tickets, and so I drove up with my brother and two of my cousins to stand around in the cold and watch baseball. Thankfully, I remembered to bring a jacket. Unfortunately this time I wore shorts and sandals. One of these days I'll put all the puzzle pieces together on the same day.

By now you all know that the Red Sox won 2-1. This obviously means absolutely nothing. Half our starting lineup didn't touch the field, and we held the lead when we subbed in all our AAA players while the Red Sox kept most of their starters on the field until they took the lead.

Jacoby Ellsbury got way too much applause. So did Pedroia.

I really don't have much animosity towards Red Sox fans. For the most part they're all pretty nice and they're too obsessed with hating the Yankees to really have any vitriole towards my team so they're OK.

So, if you want to know play-by-play I'm sure you'll check out the boxscore, and my pictures aren't going to much of anything because I've just got a silly little camera, so I'll just give you my impressions from what I saw:

1. Our first five innings were dominant. The pitchers who pitched our first five innings were Blackburn, Slowey, and Neshek. When things went downhill was the 6th inning when Mike Maroth entered. So the important thing to me here is that our pitchers vying for an actual spot on the roster all were in top form tonight.

2. Blackburn was solid. There's not much to speak about there, he went about his pitches effectively and efficiently. Slowey seemed to take his time a little bit. He let the hitter get ahead of him a few more times than I would have liked but this can easily be attributed to plain rust. He was fooling hitters and working the strike zone which was what I wanted to see.

3. Neshek was quick and effective. It was great seeing that funky delivery out on the mound again. He had good velocity and good movement on his pitches and he was able to keep the hitters off balance. While they did connect their hits were primarily weak pop-ups.

4. Brendan Harris was manning the hot corner to start off the game. Unfortunately the first ball that came his way made its way through his glove. Sure he had to do a diving slide for it but he could have come up with that ball. It was the first inning of the first game so I'll cut him some slack, but it looked a little slow and lazy. We got out of the inning so it didn't matter in the longrun, but for someone battling for that 3rd base job it was a knock.

That's Harris. My zoom sucks.

5. Casilla and Tolbert were both up the middle, and neither are guaranteed a spot on the roster. They both were fine in the field so I can't really speak much to my impressions of them. They had a pretty light day the few innings that they were in. The guy who made a couple nice plays was Jacque Jones. He really showed some wheels out in left and took great routes (something I haven't seen in left for a couple years...). I really like the guy and I'd love for him to make the roster, but hopefully at least he sticks around in Rochester and can be a September call-up for us or something.

6. Ben Revere is a stud. A pure stud. When he trotted out onto the field I was so excited to see him play. I was telling my cousins all about him and how much potential Revere has. Then the announcer said that "Zack Davis" was entering the game for the Twins and I stopped and for the life of me I felt like such a fool that here I was talking about Ben Revere and it was this guy named Zack Davis who I had never heard of! Two batters later the announcer corrected himself and I was justified. Revere can cover some ground. I can see what the worry is about his arm. The ball doesn't really zip from his hand the way it does from Cuddyer or Young, it seems to float a little bit longer. Not really going to speculate how that happens, maybe his wrist is a little loose when he throws? I know he's not a power hitter either, but he sure drove the ball to the warning track in what looked like a sure home run until he was robbed at the track.

Those are the main things that stick out to me from the game.

Oh and cotton candy.

One thing that really sticks out is how many people leave the game after the 5th or so when all the starters get pulled.

It's a veritable exodus.

The stadium was so packed there was no room to stand along the wall for our standing room only tickets, but by the 5th there were seats and tons of spots along the wall opened because everyone had streamed out. We were able to stand right behind home plate!

But we were still standing. And it was still cold.

Here's a couple other random pictures that I took which I couldn't work into this entry but also kind of came out non-blurry:

I'll hopefully have some better shots during Saturday's game. I'm going to be sitting in the first row along the Twins' side of the field so check back for that post. Friday is the funeral and reception and a family dinner at the Naples Yacht Club so it will be baseball-less. But stop by later to find out about Saturday's game (I believe Liriano is starting?!?!?!).

Random shot of me in my lucky Aguilera jersey, my new Facebook profile picture to get me through Spring:

Florida, Day 5 (I should have worn long sleeves)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3rd

My brother tagged along with me today, and although he spent the majority of the time texting back and forth with his girlfriend (he's in high school), I think he had a blast. He'd been down to Spring Training several years ago with my Dad and Step-mom but he's gotten more into baseball and probably appreciated it a little more this time. That and the autographs from Baker, Kubel, Duensing, and Span that he now sports.

He also did the sensible thing and wore a jacket. I figured because it wasn't raining that I was set, but the breeze sure got chilly, especially because we spent the whole time outside wandering around. (Yes I realize I'm talking about chilly breeze in Florida and you are probably reading this in the utter cold of Minnesota, but still, I expect warmth down here.)

There was some more pitcher's fielding practice going on when we arrived. It's kind of interesting to watch for awhile but it can get old if that's all you see everyday. I like watching some of the other drills that they do like the relays and the baserunning, and I love watching pitcher warmups on the side-fields which I saw plenty of today.

Obligatory shot of Manship, Blackburn, and Delaney watching fielding practice. Notice they all are wearing jackets. I am not. Notice also the grey sky.

From there I wandered over to the back fields where I could get up close to the gate without many other people around me. People tend to congregate in two areas at Spring Training:

1. Close to Hammond Stadium and the first field over there

2. Wherever Joe Mauer is

Thus I was one of the few people down at these back fields today, even though Rod Carew was down there all day working with Nick Punto and Ben Revere.

Anyway, I got to spend a lot of time watching Alex Burnett warm up tossing to Danny Rams.

Burnett has some nasty. He's gonna be good.

There was a lady near me who kept asking who the catcher was, she had never heard of Danny Rams. I hope Seth is proud of me because thanks to his prospect info inundation I was able to tell her that he's a power-hitting prospect, needs to work on hitting for average and a better control of the strike zone and he played most of the year in A-ball at Beloit.

I don't think she understood half of what I said though.

Speaking of talking about prospects with people, I wandered over for awhile to the low-level prospect field and saw Max Kepler warming up again. He was swinging the bat around and doing some jogging but I didn't see him take any batting practice today. Neither did I see Sano hit unfortunately. My brother was particularly impressed with the fact that they're his age and are playing pro-ball.

Max Kepler-Roczyskiaihaoansi (or something)

I went back to the main field in time to see Delmon young taking some BP. It was hard to get a good photo through the grated fence and then the BP cage, but you can kind of see his stance here. I think that was the important thing. He seemed to be carrying his stance from the end of last year into his at-bats in spring training which I think is a good sign. His leg kick wasn't high either it was just a short step before he would connect with the ball. And those reports about his weight loss are dead-on. He really does look different.

He's so skinny it was hard to get a picture of him.

He was taking batting practice with Punto and it was kind of a stark difference.

Punto laments that Young can hit further...

Speaking of someone who can hit the ball far, Chris Parmelee took some swings in the cage and when he connects he can launch the ball.

It will be interesting to see him progress because if he can hit for average he will be a great addition to the club someday.

By this time Burnett had moved on and Slama was warming up in the bullpen with Stu Cliburn giving him some advice on gripping the ball a different way. I didn't hear what it was exactly but it sounded like they were both happy with the results and Danny Lehmann kept giving positive feedback to Slama too.

When he throws he is lanky. It's like watching a bunch of limbs unfurl and come hurtling at you. I watched him pitch in Rochester and he was getting knocked around a bit but I think he'll be able to start dominating at AAA this year like he has every step along the way, and I can't wait to see him in the bigs soon.

We worked our way back to the fields right next to Hammond Stadium and I caught my first glimpse of Jacque Jones. He was taking some BP off Anthony Swarzak and then he went around behind the cage and started chatting with Gardy, Bobby Cuellar, Joe Christensen and a few coaches and he had them all in stitches and wore that trademark grin on his face. It was great seeing him back on the team.

This is me doing beat-writer stalking... I freaked La Velle out too when I approached him later

We then began walking into the stadium but saw that Scott Baker and Brian Duensing were signing autographs to we went over so he could get his ball autographed.

Baker signing after throwing some BP.

Duensing signed right after Baker did.

I wandered over to the batting cages after that and saw a few people taking turns there. Most notably was Orlando Hudson who I'd been looking for all day. Unfortunately again, through all the mesh it's hard to get a good shot...

...but here's my best effort! It's fun to see him in a Twins uniform!

I then wandered back to the back fields again where it wasn't quite as crowded and I got there just in time to see Ben Revere step into the batting cage. True he doesn't put on a display like Delmon Young or Chris Parmelee driving the ball, but he is all smiles when he's out there and certainly still makes solid contact. It's just fun to watch such a good prospect who has such an amazing attitude.

Look at that sassy walk! I love it!

He was definitely the classiest, nicest guy I met last year when I was down here and he's probably my favorite guy to see again.

He even jumped in for a picture with me for our blog today! What's not to love?!

Anyway, after Revere was done people began to wrap up. We wandered back to the stadium and caught Kubel and Span making their way into the clubhouse. I also had a Wayne "Big Fella" Hattaway sighting.

That about did it for us. It was too cold to hang around much longer and wait for the players to leave the clubhouse -- and most of them like to sneak out casually anyway. So we drove back to Naples and I had an amazing caeser salad with seared yellowfin tuna and enough rum runners, electric lemonade, and pina coladas to keep me satisfied the rest of the day.

I'm not sure if I'll catch practices tomorrow morning as that's when the visitation is scheduled for and it might be a little much to go up to Ft. Myers afterwards, but I will definitely be attending the Red Sox/Twins clash that evening over at the Red Sox stadium, so expect a late post on my thoughts from the first game of the season!

Our New Gaping Hole

This offseason has started off better than expected. The very first week of November, all across the internet, bloggers everywhere could be heard shouting "Hallelujah!" as our hopes and prayers were answered with the swift and beautiful acquisition of JJ Hardy to fill a position that's been a gaping hole in the Twins infield since Cristian Guzman left us.

Don't feel pressure or anything...

After the bitter taste of champagne wore off, many of us noted that our outfield defense looked slightly shaky heading into 2010. Denard Span, as amazing and fantastic as he is, is not an A+ centerfielder. He's an amazing leadoff hitter, but his glove and range are more adequately suited to left field.

For some reason, no one seems to be focusing anymore on the fact that we have no true centerfield solution on our team. The Twins have in effect exchanged one gaping hole for a new one.

No, not that gaping hole!

To be fair, we can consider our outfield (and, in particular, centerfield, to be a position of strength in our system: Ben Revere, Aaron Hicks, Angel Morales, Joe Benson, perhaps even Rene Tosoni though I don't know enough about his range, he has played center). Unfortunately, the highest of those prospects just completed his first year of AA, and while he had a solid season, he isn't screaming to be ready for the majors this next season. So while it's definitely a position of strength that we dealt from -- that strength is still a ways off from developing.

Our best case scenario right now is that Denard Span plays adequately enough in center that we don't cringe every time a ball soars into the outfield, and that next year either Tosoni or perhaps Revere makes a smooth transition into the majors out of Spring Training to allow Span to shift to a better corner outfield position. This is highly wishful thinking.

1) We are assuming Denard Span stays healthy all year.

That's a relatively big assumption.

God forbid Michael Cuddyer or Delmon Young is tabbed to play center if Span gets injured, and that Kubel slides into a corner outfield spot. Talk about cringing at our outfield defense! The only other option here is that either Jason Pridie (who very well could be released), or Dustin Martin (not quite the best center fielder, even in AAA), steps into a starter role if Span gets injured.

There is just no ready and available talent behind Span to be a regular in our lineup and on the field. This concerns me greatly.

2) Tosoni and Revere will probably not be ready in only one year.

Tosoni seems to be moving along nicely through the minors, but he's had one full season at AA, and to assume that he'll be ready to be handed a starting role in 2011 is still a big assumption. The Twins clearly think highly of him, but his .271/.360/.454 batting slash is sure to take a hit if not in AAA then certainly upon arrival in the majors. He'll more than likely be a useful major league player, probably in the corner outfield, by 2012 or so. But to assume he's the impending answer is a leap of faith.

Josh, sorry for pirating your photo...

Ben Revere is an amazing prospect. He might not have the arm of a center fielder right now, and his power certainly hasn't shown itself, but he's been tabbed as the Twins Minor League Player of the Year for the past 2 years and his numbers show you why. His .311/.372/.369 is a low for his (limited) career, and it was still enough to garner him the Minor League Player of the Year award. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to look at him as our center-fielder of the future -- the only question is: How far away is that "future"?

Torii Hunter had 6 years in the minors under his belt before tasting the big leagues, spending a year there, and being sent down for another partial year. Denard Span, our most recent incumbent, spent 5 full years in the minors, and then another partial year before earning his spot. Revere has only spent 3 years in the minors. Assuming he's not rushed along -- and we know the Twins aren't one to rush players along, especially because they coddled Revere out of the gate in instructional league -- our earliest bet to seem him at Target Field would probably be in 2012 or perhaps partway into 2013.

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OK, let me be direct: the Twins need a stop-gap true centerfield option to tide them over until Ben Revere or perhaps Joe Benson, etc. is ready take over when they are adequately ready. That means a two-year deal for one of the free agents out there, or looking around on the trade market for a rangy outfielder to help out our dilemma.

Maybe the fact that everyone seems much more concerned about second and third base than centerfield means I'm worrying too much -- but I think it would serve this team well to address what could very well be a more pressing issue than letting Punto and Harris round out our infield.

Perhaps I'm being swayed by living in New York, but there's a face out there on the trade market that could more than adequately handle center field for us and perhaps even the second spot in the order:

Angel Pagan: .306/.350/.487, 27.9 Runs Above Replacement, and 2.8 Wins Above Replacement.

...and he appears in sweet photos like this and has a fun name Bert Blyleven would love to pronounce.

OK, that's enough for one post. Check out the podcast from last night, Jack Steal hosted, I co-hosted, and John Bonnes was our suprise guest star! And be sure to check back here Friday morning for the next entry in my Twins Bloggers: Get to Know 'Em offseason series when I profile Andrew Bryz-Gornia of We Are Off the Mark. In the meantime, share your thoughts with me, am I crazy for wanting a center fielder?