Article: Twins Drop Burroughs. But Why?

[Nick Nelson]

Download attachment: burroughs.jpg The Twins announced today that they have designated infielder Sean Burroughs for assignment to make room for Drew Butera on the 25-man roster. This one is a head-scratcher.

 

You can certainly make the argument that Joe Mauer's knee tenderness necessitated a call-up for Butera, as he may serve as more of a second catcher than third catcher for the time being. It's just tough to understand why the Twins felt the need to dump Burroughs when there was no good reason to do so.

[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Justin Morneau came out of Monday night's game against the Angels due to wrist pain. This isn't a guy with a low pain threshold, so it's safe to say that Morneau must have been hurting pretty bad to pull himself from the game. The problem was deemed serious enough that he was immediately flown back to Minnesota for an MRI.

 

Fortunately, Morneau received good news today when it was revealed that there's no structural damage to the wrist, but he won't be ready to play until Friday "at the earliest."

 

Why not just throw Morneau on the DL and delay the roster decision? I'm not saying Burroughs is necessarily useful, but we can't make that judgment based on his 18 sporadic plate appearances. He was at the very least a veteran left-handed bat to bring off the bench, and with him and Luke Hughes both gone there is nobody on the roster to press Danny Valencia, who has been shaky in the field and jarringly horrible at the plate with a .646 OPS and 18-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

 

Maybe Burroughs wasn't really an asset, but the Twins sure seemed convinced he was less than a month ago.

 

Beyond weakening the bench and forcing the team to play short-handed for at least the next two games, the decision not to DL Morneau seems questionable on its own merits. He claims that the wrist has been bothering him since the Rays series – which was over a week ago – and it's a recurring injury from last year, so giving him an extra 10 days to rest probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

 

Rather than play it safe and stash a player on the disabled list to keep the roster at full strength, the Twins have decided to wait a few days and reevaluate.

 

Sadly typical of this team.

 

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