Thrylos

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ----The Twins has a couple split squad games today, against the Rays at Port Charlotte and at the Hammond Stadium against the Orioles. Here are my notes from the home game: After Alex Meyers' demotion yesterday, there are only 3 pitchers left in the battle for the 5th rotation spot: Mike Pelfrey, Tommy Milone and Trevor May. The last 2 started the respective games today, with Milone taking the node for the home game. While May ended up pitching a no-hit 4 innings at Port Charlotte, Milone had an adventurous start in Fort Myers. He is a pitcher who really needs to be spot on and if he is not, it is like a batting practice, and the Orioles showed that in the second inning, when they timed perfectly his 83-87 mph Fastballs, hitting them all over the park, and one (by former Twin Steve Pearce) off the staircase that leads to the RF berm, for a HR. He complemented his fastball with a 79-81 mph change and a 73-75 mph curve that were hit and miss. Totally unimpressed with Milone, maybe because I do not think much about LH junk ball pitchers, but I think that after today Milone took a step back from Pelfrey and May in that competition. To be noted: in the Orioles 4-run second inning, Josmil Pinto was hit three times! by Adam Jones' back swing on the head and left the game after the inning was over. Mildly surprised that the Twins' pitchers did not retaliate for their catcher, but the next pitcher who faced Adam Jones, was Glen Perkins... Perkins had a decent outing, other than hanging an 82 mph slider to Delmon Young for a HR in the 5th. 9 pitches, 6 FBs (90-92,) 3 SLs (81-82) all but one strikes, but a strike was a long one too. He was pounding the zone, but he is at least 4-5 mph with both of his pitches from where he needs to be. Brian Duensing pitched 2 scoreless innings and he seems in mid-season form with all 4 of his pitches working: His Fastball was 89-91, threw 2 curves at 73, one for a looking strike, got a ground out and a couple of looking strikes with a mid 80s change and his slider was fairly lively at the low 80s, inducing a couple of jammed pop ups. Watching JR Graham pitch was a treat and I think that the Twins have found a good one. Will be very surprised if he does not make the team. He pitched 2 scoreless innings, and here is the sequence of his pitches (fastball unless mentioned) : First inning: 91-ball ( B ), 93 swinging strike (SS), 94 ground out (GO). 94 fly out (FO). 94 Foul (F), 84 (SLider) Looking Strike (LS), 86 (SL) SS. Second inning: 92 Hit. 95 B, 91 B, 93 LS, 94 F, 95 F, 81 (CHange up) B, 93 LS - K. To Mr Parmelee: 91 B, 96 F, 85 (SL) B, 84 (SL) F, 85 (SL) SS - K. 95 SS, 92 B, 95 B, 96 GO. Very good movement with the fastball, and, as you can see, he does very his speeds. Changeup is not his stronger pitch and he threw only one, but his slider is above average. Looking forward to seeing him this season with the Twins. As far as position players, disappointed with Torii Hunter who killed a couple of Twins' rallies, the first by hitting into a double play with the bases loaded and one out on the first and the second by striking out with runners in scoring position and one out. If you read the box score, you'd think that Danny Santana had a good day with two hits, but what the box score does not show is a couple of awful swinging strike outs and a dropped ball when Rohlfing tried to throw the runner away that ended up moving the runner to third. I think that the battle for the starting Shortstop position is neck to neck as far as Santana and Eduardo Escobar are concerned. Hicks had a bad day at the plate and had a mishap (took a bad route and the ball dropped inches from his foot, but was too shallow) at the outfield that went for a double and a trapped ball that he could have caught. Between the four centerfield contenders nobody has really pulled ahead at this point. Eddie Rosario is hitting .242/.235/.515, Shane Robinson .269/.345/.385, Hicks .222/.313/.370 and Jordan Schafer .217/.357/.261. Pick your poison. Oswaldo Arcia had a good play with the glove on a shallow fly ball that he aggressively called Hicks away and fielded cleanly; that ball would had been an adventure for Willingham last season. Really impressed with the improvements at Hammond Stadium, but there are a few things sorely missing: A couple of (small) infield boards; one to indicate balls and strikes and outs and the other pitch velocity. The main board is not visible from all outfield seats well. But there is always next year. Tomorrow and Monday, there are no home games for the Twins, so expect full coverage of the action at the minor league fields.

Think milk shake and sub milk with beer: malt, flavor number 1, ice, flavored beer, shake machine.

I think that Pryor will likely go next. Disappointed to see him touch 93 at the Hammond Stadium radar. Lots of potential there, but if he does not get his FB up high, he will be hit. Saw Boyle pitch yesterday, 3 pitches good command, velo needs to get higher, definitely more productive than Guerrier in the Guerrier role. High on Pelfrey as a pen option, higher than the Twins' brass on May as a pen option. Perkins, Duensing, Fien (plus at least one who loses the 5th SP battle) pretty much givens. Thielbar (has been horrible), Thompson, Hamburger, Boyle, Graham (looking forward to see him today) for 2-3 spots. Need to see more from the group (and it is too early still), but there is potential, esp. if the Twins have May and Pelfrey there...

Good stuff and good to meet you John. For me there is no Spring without Spring Training, so it has become an annual ritual for a while. Summit Pilsner is available at the stand by the Twins' wives' autograph area and Extra Pale Ale at the RF "tiki" bar. Another beer you got to mention is the Minnesota Red, available in many places, and is not that bad for a custom mass produced Red Ale. With that sun, Miller Light and H2O (you can bring unopened water bottles in the park otherwise they charge $3.50, and you can refill from the cold water fountains behind the batter's eye) works for me the best

A great article was written this week by Jonathan Judge and published at The Hardball Times, " FIP in Context." This introduces an new metric, called cFIP, or contest-adjusted FIP that attempts to "estimate the pitcher’s true pitching talent during a particular season".I'm always interested in new pitching metrics development, and not only because I have myself taken part in the endeavor. This is an interesting metric, albeit much more complex than PE and xPE. It also correlates well with SIERA, which along with xPE (because it is easy to calculate) are my two favorite predictive metrics regarding pitching performance. I will not steal Jonathan's thunder, please read that excellent article, but I will present his framework and then present his work as applied to the Twins' pitchers. (He calculated cFIPs for every pitcher in the league for the past 4 years, including Jamie Carroll.) The cFIP scale is normalized to 100 for average, just like OPS+ and ERA+, but it is a minus scale, meaning that less is better, like ERA and FIP and SIERA and all similar metrics. (It should have been called cFIP-, but that is a different story.) So 100 is average and less is better. Jonathan Judge has the following buckets of pitchers, according their cFIP: 70 and less = superb 70–85 Great 85–95 Above Avg. 95–105 Average 105–115 Below Avg. 115–130 Bad 130+ Awful Let's put the 2014 Minnesota Twins' pitching staff in those buckets. For reference, players that are not still with the team are in parenthesis. I am also including the 2014 cFIP numbers of the newcomers this off-season. They have an asterisk behind their names. Superb: Phil Hughes 70 Great: Glen Perkins 74 Above Avg.: Casey Fien 89 Tim Stauffer 91* (Yohan Pino 94) Average: Aaron Thompson 98 Logan Darnell 99 Ricky Nolasco 100 Trevor May 101 Ervin Santana 101* Michael Tonkin 102 Caleb Thielbar 103 Blaine Boyer 103* Lester Oliveros 105 Below Avg.: (Jared Burton 106) (Kris Johnson 106) (Sam Deduno 107) Stephen Pryor 108 Kyle Gibson 109 (Anthony Swarzak 111) A. J. Achter 112 Ryan Pressly 112 Brian Duensing 114 Tommy Milone 114 Bad: (Matt Guerrier 116) (Kevin Correia 119) Awful: Mike Pelfrey 132 A few observations: According to this, in 2014, the Twins had one superb pitcher, Phil Hughes, one great pitcher, Glen Perkins, and 13 pitchers (that is a full MLB staff, ladies and gentlemen) who were average, above average, great or superb. Mike Pelfrey (who tied for worst in the majors in this metric) was the only awful pitcher in the Twins' staff.But, the Twins had the second worst bullpen in the majors according to xFIP and SIERA and the third worst rotation in the majors, according to SIERA (fourth according to xFIP).Other than Yohan Pino, who was an unfortunate loss, the Twins' front office seems to behave pretty well according to this metric. The pitchers they let go were all below average or worse. They did keep a few below average pitchers, and they did keep Mike Pelfrey, who is better suited for the pen and was injured. Other than Duensing who had a down season, the other below average pitchers are all young.The big issue in the big picture here: The Twins had a whole staff worth (13) pitchers who were average and above, yet they managed to be almost at the bottom of the league in pitching. Those things seem to be in conflict. Let's dig deeper and check out the 2013 Twins' cFIP buckets that Jonathan Judge calculated. For reference purposes, players who left after 2013 are in parenthesis and I added Ricky Nolasco (with an asterisk) as well. Superb: Glen Perkins 63 Casey Fien 67 Great: Nobody Above Avg.: Jared Burton 91 Caleb Thielbar 91 Ricky Nolasco 93* Michael Tonkin 94 Average: Anthony Swarzak 97 Brian Duensing 97 (Shairon Martis 105) Below Avg.: Mike Pelfrey 109 (Liam Hendriks 110) Ryan Pressly 111 (Cole DeVries 114) (Andrew Albers 115) Bad: Kevin Correia 116 Samuel Deduno 116 (Josh Roenicke 118) (P.J. Walters 122) (Vance Worley 124) Kyle Gibson 125 (Scott Diamond 129) Awful: Nobody This is some really interesting data. Here is what I see: I think that I either underestimated the Twins' front office use of metrics in personnel decisions in building the team or Jack Goin should buy me a beer this week at Hammond Stadium, because this tool really describes what the Twins are doing regarding personnel decisions. Recently, they have tended to get rid of below average and worse pitchers and add average and above pitchers. Hughes was around 100, but I did not add him here. This is a stop the presses type of statement. I'm close to nodding my head in approval of what the front office is doing.For 2013 this tells a tale of two categories: all the average and above pitchers were relievers. All starters were below average or worse but not awful. And Pelfrey was the best of that lot.Enough with 2013. What happened in 2014, relative to 2013? Every single reliever from Perkins down regressed, while the starters (save the injured Pelfrey and replacement-level Correia) improved. This is fundamentally interesting, because it breaks some commonly accepted narratives. One excuse for the decline of the Twins' pen in 2014 was that they were too tired because the rotation was so bad. This data turns this upside down. The Twins 2013 rotation was worse than the Twins 2014 rotation, and the 2014 Twins' pen made the 2014 Twins rotation worse. So a bad pen can make a rotation worse. Like a reliever coming in with two outs and the bases loaded to give a grand slam and four runs to the starter's record. What a concept...I am starting to really like this metric. So, and this is really hard for me to say, the front office did make some improvements for 2014 that actually seem to be supported by real data, but the pitching tanked compared to 2013. Why? I'd love to hear your theories after this, and this is what I am thinking: Look at that 2014 list up there. In your mind, normalize it for playing time. That would shift the buckets heavier to the below average. How many games did Pino or May start compared to Pelfrey, Correia, Deduno? Why was Burton used in high leverage situations over better relievers? Yes. Do the same normalization for playing time for the 2013 data. And you are looking at evidence of what has been written here, loudly and clearly, about mismanagement of the Twins' pitching staff by Gardy and Andy.This has to be part of the reason for the pen decline in 2014. And it had to be fixed. And, yes, metrics can be devised to normalize and approximate defense independent pitching, but I have not yet seen one that could estimate the madness of the Twins' 2014 OF. (What is the range factor of a bucket? )This actually makes me more hopeful, because it seems like the Twins are making an effort to address some things that need addressing. So, what do you say? Click here to view the article

Good to see Seth's post. That was my travel day and did not quite get to read it, until just now. I just made my suggestion here based on what I saw from him today. Didn't talk to the kid, just saw him hit

They got 2 LHPs. Perkins and Duensing. I think that's enough. I did like what I have seen from Boyer today. 3 pitches with plus command. I would not leave Archer out of the equation yet, as well... Still this pen does not have a dominant arm (or two) and this might be a problem

My (first and) latest take on the roster is here. As far as rookies go, I think that Rosario and Graham can still make the team. Not sure that Theilbar should be a given.

Meyer is 25. Here is a comparable (mechanics' wise) pitcher's age 25 season: 160.7 IP, 4.82 ERA, 4.05 FIP, 96 BB, 130 K, 1.512 WHIP. His age 26 season: 219.7 IP, 3.65 ERA, 4.29 FIP, 120 BB, 194 K, 1.338 WHIP. couple of questions? a. would you stay or would you go? b. do you know who that guy is?

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ------------- Today the Minnesota Twins hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates at Hammond Stadium. As usual, before the game I trotted by the minor league fields that today were hosting a celebrity from the baseball world: A dad watching his kid pitch a bullpen: And then walk with him after he was done: Interesting enough, not many fans had an idea of who the dad was. And he was about as humble as a baseball superstar as I have seen. He had his picture taken with fans and shook his head and smiled when I told him that his kid has a great arm, from one dad to another. And Derek Rodriguez does have a great arm. He was tossing nice crisp fastballs when he got his mechanics right. But his mechanics were all over the place to begin and his pitching coach was there talking to him pitch after pitch, and Derek incorporated the feedback. I think that making the transition to pitching will be hard, but I think that he has the determination, the tools and the family and Twins support to do it. Will likely start 2015 in Extended Spring Training, but I fully expect him to see him progress fast. Every Spring Training there are a couple of players who are relatively unknown, but do make an impression to me. The first one I will point this year is Jack Barrie, a 19 year old Aussie First Baseman who made his pro debut last season with the GCL Twins. This kid has Kennys Vargas written all over him. Great plate presence, quick wrists, one to keep an eye on. And I bet you never have heard of him. Back to the big boys playing the Pirates. Kyle Gibson started for the Twins and after his recent discussion about adding velocity, I was betting that we'd see at least one 95 mph fastball on the (2 mph or so) fast Hammond Stadium radar, and we did. The problem with Kyle today was that his 93-95 mph fastballs were lacking the movement and the downward break his 90-92 mph fastballs did. Also his slider was not there (he threw 2 in the first innings, including the first HR to Cervelli). In the third inning, he seems that he threw all sliders and change ups. At least he was working the kinks out. No worries about Gibson. In a tale of two who are fighting for the 25th man spot on the roster. Eduardo Nunez beat out a cleanly-fielded ground ball to the SS (our own Pedro Florimon, btw) for an infield hit and managed to steal second two pitches afterwards. Shane Robinson (who is fighting for the same spot,) drove him in with a scorcher on the first base line and then, after Dozier was hit by a pitch to fill first, was thrown out at third on a double steal that found Dozier safe and sound at second. Robinson had some decent plays at left today, but I still think that Nunez is probably fighting with Herrmann (who did not play) for this spot as is now... Back to arms. Blaine Boyer came in to pitch in the middle of an inning and was effective. And then pitched another inning and was effect, but in his second inning his velocity picked up a few notches. His fastball moved from 89-90 all the way to 93-94, his curve from 73 to 76 and he threw some change ups at mid 80s (all well commanded, btw,) which made me think that indeed there might be some pitchers who are different (and better) if they come up with no outs and no ons on the top of an inning. Michael Tonkin and Stephen Pryor followed. Tonkin, who have since been opted, topped up at 94 and so did Pryor, who really did some nifty glovework in a comebacker, which made me think whether there are any real fastball pitchers left on the roster, since that gun is 2 mph or so fast and these 3 are pitchers touted to hit high 90s. Maybe too early, but still somewhat concerning... In another note, it was great to see Toper Anton again, and meet Steve Lein and John Bonnes. See you guys around the next few days.

I think that we have seen Santana's ceiling...

Definitely last year they had a giveaway of those shirts the first game of Spring Training. Not sure if they did it for the Gopher game

The AA team won 5-4. Was out there too. Did not realize that you and Stringer were around. Will try to look for you guys Saturday if there

Unlike for the pitchers, hitter's BABIP is more of a skill. Players tend to regress to their skill's average and BABIP can vary as one hitter develops. .273/.317/.391 - Danny Santana's Minor League slash line. Early in his career his BABIP was in the low .300s. The last couple seasons in the minors it has been .353 (2013) and .371 (2014) with .405 in the majors last season. His BB/K ratio last season was .20 (this means that if that BABIP goes down to .330-.340 (Ben Revere or Rickey Henderson territory), his OBP will approach about his career minor league average (.310s-.320s.) Agree that a .405 BABIP is not sustainable for Santana. And Molitor should know it...

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ----- Today the Minnesota Twins played against the Rays at Fort Charlotte, which meant minor league side by side double-header action of Rochester and Chattanooga against the Red Sox' AAA and AA squads at fields 4 and 5 of the Complex. The much anticipated moment today was the return of Glen Perkins who got the first inning with the AAA club against the PawSox. Based on reports from people who were at Fort Charlotte, he did not feel any pain. He was carted to and fro field number 4, which is the furthest away from Hammond Stadium and he threw warmup tosses to Kyle Knudson, who was also the starting Catcher for the Red Wings. During the game, he threw 14 pitches, most strikes. His fastball was sitting at 90-91, hitting 92 and 93 once each. His slider was at 81-82, all figures that are a good 4-5 mph below his season form, but it is still the second (he pitched against the Gophers) game for him. During his warm ups he did seem to throw a couple of changeups, but could had just been slow fastballs. All in all a good appearance, but he has to ramp up pretty quickly. The second biggest name, as far as players are concerned, was Miguel Sano who played at Field number 5 with the Chatanooga squad. His agent, Rob Plummer, was on site and had a change to have a very enlightening (but off the record) conversation with him. Interesting guy and he seems really proud of the fact that he signed Sano when he was 14. Miguel answered with a three-run monster home run that likely broke a window or two at the subdivision past the fence, with this swing, off William Cuevas : As a side note, Sano appears fitter than last season. Speaking of celebrities, Tom Kelly was at hand and had a chance to meet with one of his former pitchers, Paul Abbott, who pitched for Kelly's Twins from 1990-1992: I had a chance to see several other prospects and here are quick notes: Greg Peavey was selected by the Twins from the Mets in the AAA portion of the Rule 5 draft last winter. He came in to pitch after Glen Perkins in the AAA side and was pretty impressive. He has three pitches: A 90-91 mph Fastball, a low 70s slow curve and a low 80s change. Pitching mostly with the first 2, but his change did produce strikeouts. Good control and command of all his pitches, very fluid motion; he is definitely a dark horse. A mature pitcher. Also in the AAA side of things, Cole Johnson made a good appearance. He is a fastball slider pitcher with his FB hitting 94 but his slider location was inconsistent. Pretty early in Spring training for that. On the AA side of things, both Nico Goodrum and Michael Gonzalez appear different. Gonzalez appears much fitter and for the 27 year old, this might be his last chance in a Twins' uniform. Goodrum has been working with a personal trainer this off-season and he got some muscle. He is also taking much more robust at bats, than last Spring Training. If you squint really hard, you might confuse him with Byron Buxton, as far as physique goes: As far as the pitchers at the AA side went, Tyler Duffey started, but I chose to look at Glen Perkins and Greg Peavey next door. I did have a good look at Jeff Reed, who was unhittable at the Arizona Fall League and was really impressed. His fastball was at 95-96 this early and his slider at high 80s. I will not be surprised is he and Nick Burdi are with the big club come August or so. Interesting 3/4 delivery with a fairly aggressive motion. Tim Shibuya pitched a couple good innings. He is really deceptive and one of those "rubber arm" guys. Good repeatable mechanics, good control and command, I really see him as the long man in a major league bullpen some day. It was a treat seeing Jorge Fernandez, my 19th Twins' prospect, to catch today. Really good hands , excellent feet (he got a guy out on a difficult high bounce off the home plate) and very good receiving ability. I never had any doubts about his bat, but really liked what I saw with the glove today. He is a guy who is not considered a prospect, does not get many praises, but I really enjoyed watching Stephen Wickens play today. Good fundamentals and instincts on both sides of the ball, good glove and versatility, might get the 26 year old into the big leagues some day, if he gets his contact rate and plate discipline a bit higher. As a parting shot, here is Sam Perlozzo, the long time major league coach and manager, who started his playing career with the Twins, having an 1 on 2 base-running tutoring session with the Twins' number 2 and 3 prospects. Tomorrow the Twins are hosting the Pirates at Hammond Stadium and I will be there. You can find all my 2015 Spring Training posts here.

I agree for selling high, but if you are competing the goal of deadline trades should be: 1. make the MLB team better now with the trade 2. do not screw up the future with the trade. 3. sell players at the peak of their values (could be major leaguers or prospects) and when their perceived value is higher than their actual value. Players that fulfill #3 above are: Dozier, D. Santana, K Suzuki, T. Plouffe, G. Perkins, P. Hughes, C. Fien, K. Thielbar, N. Gordon, B. Buxton, K. Stewart, J. Berrios. and a few more possibly. All I am saying is that I believe that the aforementioned have higher perceived value than actual value. If you can fill up holes and close those from the inside (eg. replace Hughes with Meyer, Perkins with Burdi, Dozier with Polanco etc,) you should go ahead and trade. But you got to trade value. You cannot package someone with low perceived value, like Nolasco, because a. you are selling low and b. the actual value that you get will be equally low. Think Pierczynski trade: Sell high, target players with lower perceived values than actual values. But hard to trade all the players who have banners above the Hammond Stadium ticket office (minus Mauer.)

Are you sure that a team with Rosario at CF and Escobar at SS, does not beat them both? Santana is not that great fielding SS and is a worse Centerfielder, and Rosario is better with the bat than him.

Would you say that if the Twins are, let's say, 10 games above .500 at the deadline? It is all relative.

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --------- Today was my first full day at Fort Myers and the Twins had a split squad duo of games, with the half of the team hosting the Orioles at Hammond Stadium and the other half a few miles away playing the Red Sox at Jet Blue Park. This was the second year in a row as far as renovations went for the facilities, and the Hammond Stadium looks really great. The front facade is extended to both broaden the concession place plaza and put a roof over it and to host a couple new elevators and gift shops. There are 4 gift shops in all now, which are much better than the single closet-size one that was there 3 years ago. The main one, which about the size of an average AA ballpark gift shop, even had Miracle T-shirts. For some reason there was no pregame batting practice on field number six, as it has been the norm the seasons before; I suspect that it has to do with the split-squad games today. Joe Vavra was throwing batting practice to someone's kid in the under-stadium cages. Not much activity in the minor league parks also; Sporadic batting practice at the Chattanooga, including Miguel Sano and DJ Hicks hitting some good ones off Stew Cliburn, who looks scarily like Rick Anderson these days. Jorge Polanco and AAA infielders had bunt practice at the Rochester field. Nothing much there as far as minors go, other than Nick Burdi was surrounded by a whole slew of autograph seekers when he showed up. No home game tomorrow, so I will be able so spend a full day with the prospects. As far as the game today went, there were a few things of note: In the first inning, Joe Mauer hit a routine soft grounder to the shortstop, who had a hard time fielding it, dropped it, recovered it and threw to first to get a slow trotting Mauer out. This was not a great thing to see from the Twins' highest paid player. Had he run full speed, he would had been safe. I hope that these kind of plays do not happen again. On the other hand, the subsequent inning Eduardo Nunez beat out a non-trivial cleanly fielded infield single to the shortstop; hard not to see the contradictions between someone who has a job and someone who is fighting for one. Torii Hunter is a yeller at the outfield. And this is a good thing. And he does not only yell "I got it". In couple of situations, a fly ball to right center and a shallow fly to the right, he yelled for Schafer and Dozier respectively to go and get it. And it worked. That was a good thing to see. Eddie Rosario was great with the glove at left. He did throw out Delmon Young when he tried to stretch a single, but even more importantly (and you cannot see that on the scoreboard) he took a triple away from an Orioles hitter with a great route and a great below the knee catch. He made it look so easy, that I bet that most of the Stadium thought that it was a routine play. It wasn't. Speaking of routes, I am not sure that Jordan Schaefer is the best one out there. Had a long fly really misjudged and hit the wall, allowing eventually Torii Hunter to make the throw to the infield. That ball was catchable. Being a left hand throwing Centerfielder might have some disadvantages. As far as pitching went, Stephen Pryor really surprised me. He pitched fine, but there were earlier reports about him being healthy and being back with his mid- to high-90s velocity. He topped at 92 in Hammond Stadium's (fast) radar today, which is not extremely thrilling, to say at least. For comparison's shake, Ervin Santana hit 93. Back there tomorrow morning and expect a full report on the prospects, tomorrow evening.

" Mike Pelfrey is back from elbow surgery and (evidently) finally healthy. And then there's Milone, who might be the most accomplished big-leaguer of the bunch." Nah. Not really Pelfrey: 9.7 fWAR 5.4 bWAR Milone: 5.0 fWAR, 3.2 bWAR

Have you seen the likes of Colabello, Parmelee, Kubel, Barlett, etc at the OF? Have you seen the massive cut that Molitor just did to play the players who have a chance? Do you remember who Gardenhire had pitch important innings that later and later in Spring Training the last 4-5 years? Did Gardenhire ever had the whole team take short flies extra fielding practice because of on-field screwups? Nope. Not. The. Same. Thankfully.

Indeed re: Milone; thanks! Fixed it. Did not realize that he was a Sept. callup in 2011 and did not go down at all in 2012. Also agree with you about Herrmann and Rosario. As far as the others go, we have 3 weeks left of Spring Training. The bullpen situation is the most unclear right now, because 2-3 good or bad games can move people one way or another... Also, there might be trades.

I think that by the All-Star break (or even earlier, if Vargas collapses or get hurt) that would be Hunter's exact role in 2015

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch ---- After the 18 recent cuts the Twins made (some of them unannounced yet) yesterday, the camp roster was trimmed to 43 players. I did provide a break down of those players by position yesterday, also mentioning whether they have options or whether they are on the 40-man roster. Based on these numbers, I am taking a preliminary look at the Twins' potential opening day roster, position by position: Position players (13) Catchers (2/3) Suzuki, and one of Pinto/Fryer/Herrmann. Herrmann might be added as a third catcher/Utility. Fryer is not on the 40-man roster Infield (6/7) Mauer, Dozier, Santana, Escobar, Plouffe. One or both of Vargas and Nunez. Nunez is out of options Outfield (4/5) Arcia, Hunter and two or three of: Hicks, Rosario, Robinson, Schafer. Schafer is out of options, Robinson is not on the 40-man roster. Pitchers (12) Starting Pitchers (5) Hughes, Santana, Nolasco, Gibson; one of Milone, Pelfrey, May, Meyer. All have options, but Pelfrey has to accept assignment. Relief Pitchers (7) Perkins, Duensing, Fien one or two of Milone, Pelfrey, May, Meyer two or three of Pressly, Stauffer, Thielbar, Tonkin, Achter, Graham, Thompson, Boyer, Pryor, Hamburger. Stauffer and Graham (rule 5) have no options, Boyer and Hamburger are not on the 40 man roster. These are the major battles right now in the Twins' camp: The Starting Centerfielder and fourth outfielder: Hicks/Scafer/Rosario/Robinson. The first two have higher probability to win the CF starter. If Scafer wins, both Hicks and Rosario will be optioned because they will need to play daily, making Robinson the fourth outfielder. If Hicks or Rosario win the starting position, both Schafer and Robinson can make it as a fifth outfielder. Robinson is on the 40-man roster, but might take Graham's spot if he does not stick. Verdict: Too early to tell, but looks like Hicks & Scafer will be the 2 who are going north The backup Catcher: Pinto, Herrmann and Fryer are fighting for one spot. Fryer is not on the 40-man roster, thus having a bigger mountain to climb. Herrmann will be in the utility fight as well. Verdict: Too early to tell, both Herrmann and Pinto have been good with the bat this Spring, Fryer has not, but has been very good with the glove. This might go until the last days. The Utility Position: Nunez, the one of Schafer or Robinson who did not make the cut in the Outfield and Herrmann will be fighting for one position. Verdict: Too close. Scafer and Nunez are out of options, Robinson is not on the 40-man roster. The 5th Starter and one or two bullpen positions: Milone, Pelfrey, May and Meyer are fighting for one spot. Verdict: Milone and Pelfrey are the forerunners here, in a battle that will be bought to the end with the loser going to the pen. I think that Meyer will likely start at Rochester; May has a chance to make the Twins' pen, thus getting 2 pen positions from this group. The final 2-3 bullpen positions: Pressly, Stauffer, Thielbar, Tonkin, Achter, Graham, Thompson, Boyer, Pryor, Hamburger. The three most veteran pitchers in this group (Pressly, Stauffer and Tonkin) have been the Twins worst pitchers in Spring Training, while Hamburger, Pryor, Graham and Thompson have been shining. Verdict: This can go both ways. The safest would be to option May, and start with Stauffer, Thielbar and Graham. Would it be the best? Likely not, based on what Stauffer and Thielbar have shown. Will be interesting to see how this will shake out as well. This decision will also be very telling about Molitor's and Allen's philosophies.