He is what he is as a RF, and he will play there the majority of the time he's in the spring lineups. Doesn't hurt to have him play 1B once a week or something.
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You realize his minor league playing time the last two years right? 180 starts at 1B vs. 40 in RF. The last time he played mostly OF was 2007 (Which accounts for almost half of all OF starts in his minor league career) Call me crazy, but I'd sort of like the guy to start getting comfortable at the position he'll largely be playing when the games count. Here is someone more close to the situation:
Gardy is exactly right. Not playing him there isn't helping him, especially days removed from throwing concerns.Quote:
"If you put him out there and let him play every day, he's going to get better and better," Gardenhire said. "Some of our Minor League managers have said he's a very good right field manager when he's out there a lot."
Is that your recommendation? Are you advocating for the Twins from office to send Parmelee to AAA and start someone from among the alphabet above based on spring training numbers (assuming they stay on the same neighborhood)?
I will state that Parmelee needs to be in the major leagues this year. He may struggle, but he will not make any progress in AAA. He has a chance to be a contributing major league regular until the Twins no longer have him under control. The Twins need to invest in that chance.
I think that if Benson, Hicks and Mastroianni are all better that him in ST, he needs to be in AAA. They are all better OFs than Parmelee and Mastroianni and Benson have as many options as Parmelee left. So the argument for Parmelee and control becomes the same as Benson and Mastroianni and control. I would have no problem to have Parmelee warming the 1B spot if they trade Morneau for someone like Vargas/Sano/Harrison but his offense has not been there in the majors last season (other than isoP, he was Buterrible last season.) So I see nothing about handing him a job and not one of Benson, Hicks and Mastroianni if they outperform him. And if he is going to be sitting on the bench, like he did last season, I'd rather see Ramirez or Boggs do that... The other thing is that this team is too LH as is, so I'd rather have Benson (who has the same options and is the same age and bats RH and a much better fielder than Parmelee...)
If he doesn't have it, sent him to AAA to get it.
Like I said, he's going to be playing RF most of spring. Clement played at 1B today, and DAn Rohlfing played the late innings. Clement will play a lot. They'll get some other guys there. Yup, the last time that Parmelee played a lot of RF was 2007, but he also played there for 6-7 years before that.
I think we all know that 1B is not completely out of the realm of possibility of him playing again later in the 2013 season, so it certainly doesn't hurt anything at all to have him play there from time to time. Oh, and he also practices every day in RF as well.
I kind of look at Parmalee like I do Hendricks/Dozier/Florimon at this point. They've done what they're going to do at Triple A. Ride them half a season and see what happens. I'm not going to be that upset if Hicks starts the Season at Triple A with either Benson or Mastroianni in Center.
The Twins can't ulitmately be that concerned whether they end up with 68 Wins or 64. It really makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things.
If Parmelee doesn't start hitting, it won't matter where it is he doesn't play.