Nick Nelson

Obviously this idea is contingent on him cutting down the strikeouts somewhat. I don't think that's unreasonable. Thirty-five percent is crazy.

There's plenty of reason for skepticism regarding Miguel Sano's defense in right field. But at the plate, his masterful approach and incredible power should do more than make up for it. I believe that if he stays healthy, he'll outshine all other hitters in the American League on his way to a Most Valuable Player award in his first full season.The Twins were aided by so many strong rookie performances last year that the term "sophomore slump" can't help but be uttered this spring. It's certainly legitimate to wonder whether the league might adjust in Year 2 to Eddie Rosario's free-swinging tendencies, or Tyler Duffey's two-pitch mix. Somehow that seems hard to envision with Sano. His approach at the plate is impeccable. There's not really a weakness to exploit. He'll strike out, sure – in bunches sometimes – but Sano demonstrates such patience at the dish and works so many deep counts that he's invariably going to force mistakes. Taking advantage of those has never exactly been a problem for him. As a rookie, Sano ran the count full in 93 of his 335 plate appearances. That's 28 percent. The major-league leader in full counts was Cincinnati's Joey Votto, who got there 173 times in 695 PA (25 percent). The American League leader was Mike Trout (21 percent). Votto led the majors in walks. Trout hit 41 home runs with brilliant defense in center field. Both are former MVP recipients. Sano's profile differs from each, but he has traits that have traditionally been valued very highly by award voters. With his immense power and his placement in the middle of a quality lineup, Sano figures to put up outstanding numbers in the home run and RBI categories. His big personality and occasional bravado will endear him to the baseball world. The distance, and often dramatic nature, of his majestic homers can make him a steady presence on highlight reels. His defense, which is likely to be adequate at best in right field and potentially quite a bit worse, won't help bolster his value, exactly. But he may not spend the entire season there, and I tend to think that most voters would favorably view his dutifully going out and playing a brand new position because his team asked him to. Sano's legacy will be built upon what he does at the plate, however, and he shows no signs of slowing in production after putting up rookie numbers that would've factored into the MVP conversation if prorated over a full season. This spring in Fort Myers he has been doing his thing. When I've watched, he has worked a full count in seemingly every at-bat. The strikeouts have been there, as expected – 14 in 38 at-bats – but he has also drawn 11 walks. And when he has made contact, he has consistently put a charge into the ball, resulting in six extra-base hits and plenty of gasp-inducing line drives. Sano has never put up an OPS lower than 870 at any level. That almost feels like his floor. And his ceiling, as a 22-year-old who is still learning how to play in the majors with about a half-season's worth of at-bats under his belt? It's hard to put a cap on it. If he can stay on the field, he is going to put up some eye-popping offensive statistics. Health is no given for him. He's got a big body, and will be especially vulnerable while running around in the outfield for the first time. In his short time with the Twins, we've seen him deal with some ankle and hamstring issues. But since graduating to full-season ball, Sano has never missed an extended period of time due to injury, outside of the unfortunate Tommy John surgery that cost him all of 2014. In 2012, 2013 and 2015, he averaged 564 plate appearances, and that's with shorter seasons in the minors. Of course, Sano could have a healthy, terrific season and still fall short of the MVP award. Maybe an unspectacular batting average resulting from his high K-rate holds him back (no hitter has been MVP with a BA under .280 since 1972, and only five of the last 50 to win it have batted below .300). Maybe someone like Trout or Carlos Correa has an even more ridiculous year. Maybe the Twins fall well short of the postseason, essentially eliminating any of their players from serious consideration. But I'm feeling optimistic. When you watch Sano step up to the plate, watch him get his money's worth in every single at-bat, watch intimidated pitchers feebly try to nibble the outside edges of the zone against him, it's hard to feel any other way. Some might believe that Sano has some growing up to do. To me, he looks like a grown man who is ready to take this league by storm. He's not going to win a Gold Glove, but he's a very viable candidate to take home some other hardware, and that's a hell of an exciting thought with the season less than a week away. Click here to view the article

Could have, could have, could have. So what? They didn't do those things. When they decided they wanted to gamble on Park, and couldn't find a taker for Plouffe, they determined that Sano in RF was the best option for the time being. Plouffe is a better third baseman and it's not clear he'd be a much better right fielder. Like I said, they know it's not ideal. But it also means that they have the bats of Sano, Plouffe and Park all in the lineup. They've deemed that offensive upside to be worth a probable defensive liability at the least important position on the field. You might disagree, but it's not a ridiculous line of thinking. Nor is letting your dominant in-house reliever serve as a setup man rather than tethering yourself to an expensive aging free agent who probably isn't as good. This organization has done some odd and inexplicable things in the past. Neither of these situations fall into that category.

The choice that they willfully made was deciding that they didn't want Sano to be a DH at age 22. Do you disagree with that? Or with not trading Plouffe when he had no market? May to the bullpen wasn't about a forced hand, it was about optimal use of resources.

Spending a stretch of March in Minnesota Twins camp is always illuminating in terms of what to expect in the upcoming season. Sure, it helps to chat with players/personnel and find out how much they're willing to share, but the vibe and buzz are more telling. You pick up on certain things based on what you overhear, and what you glean from conversations with reporters who are there all month. Last year, I came home from a week in Fort Myers with five beliefs about the team reinforced, and they were all confirmed more or less in the regular season. Here are three of my most significant takeaways from spending time on-site last week. 1. The bullpen might not be so far behind. That certainly wasn't my impression a year ago, and I didn't expect it be so this time around. Minnesota's relief corps was a weakness in 2015 and the front office did little to address it during the offseason. However, the talent makeup of the bullpen at the end of 2015 was a lot better than at the beginning, namely due to the additions of Trevor May and Kevin Jepsen. Both look like quality high-leverage arms, and to me, May has the makings of a pivotal difference-maker. Perkins has mostly looked good this spring, and he reports that his ramped up regimen over the offseason is already paying dividends. Cautious optimism is warranted at the back end. I personally think that the Twins would have benefited from upgrading over Casey Fien, and aiming higher than Fernando Abad on the lefty relief market, but youthful depth offsets those concerns somewhat. While other teams around the league have focused on building power bullpens with late-inning flame-throwers, the Twins have fallen behind the curve, as reflected by their last-place rank in relief strikeouts last year. But that is changing. Perkins and Jepsen usually work in the mid-90s with their fastballs and May can run his up to 98. Two righties vying for the final spots, Michael Tonkin and Ryan Pressly, have been flashing 95 and 96 with hard breaking stuff. And that's before you account for minor-leaguers like Nick Burdi, Jake Reed and Alex Meyer, who could all be bringing their upper-90s heat to The Show this summer. The Twins are not ignorant to the league-wide trend of bullpen gas. They've just characteristically elected to fuel theirs from within. 2. The Twins really like Max Kepler. Kepler was never going to make this team out of spring training. He has just one season of experience above Single-A and he's been a gradual developer, so the Twins weren't going to risk throwing him right into the fire. Paul Molitor – who has plenty of familiarity with the young outfielder given his years of experience as a minor-league instructor prior to taking the manager gig – basically said as much when asked, even as Kepler's stay carried into the latter portion of March. There was never much suspense. But the fact that Kepler stuck around as long as he did, up until he was cut last Friday, is telling. A year ago, Eddie Rosario was in a similar position, surprisingly remaining in big-league camp until March 28th. While he wasn't on the Twins roster at the start of the year, it took only a month before he got the call, and he never looked back. Kepler is a hell of a specimen, with a lithe yet muscular physique and swing mechanics that garner all sorts of complimentary cliches from the old-school ball guys around camp. I think it's safe to say we'll be seeing him up before long. 3. Yep, the Miguel Sano in right field experiment is going to be rough. There wasn't much reason to expect anything else. Acclimating a ballplayer to a brand new position takes more than a month, and often more than a year. People make a lot of out of Sano's size, and that's certainly a factor, but the biggest problem is a lack of experience and ingrained instincts. He didn't get a ton of action while I was there, and really hasn't all spring, but I did see him badly bungle a fairly routine liner, and there have been times where his footwork and throws have been noticeably awkward. Look, the Twins aren't under some delusion that this is an ideal situation. They know it's not, but they feel their hand was forced. They weren't going to uproot an entrenched veteran starter like Joe Mauer or Trevor Plouffe, and the desire not to relegate a 22-year-old to DH duty is understandable. When asked, coaches and execs tried to focus on the positive aspects of his progress (what else are the going to do?) but they're prepared and expectant of some growing pains. The good news is that right field falls toward the bottom of the defensive spectrum. Relatively few balls get hit there, and many of them are easy flies and line drives that Sano shouldn't have any problem with. It's a position that impacts games less than perhaps any other. Still, there are going to be some scary and frustrating moments out there. It will be interesting to see how pitchers react if they get bit repeatedly by the young slugger's inexperience. Click here to view the article

It's hard for me to envision Quentin taking an indefinite assignment at Triple-A. He didn't come back to ride minor-league buses. If he accepts that arrangement, I've gotta think it means the Twins indicated there's a strong chance of a fairly quick call-up. But it's not clear how they could, short of saying "Well, if there's an injury..." He showed enough this spring that some team would probably have a use for him. We'll see how it plays out. They made the right call here. Gotta stick with Arcia.

I like how so many people are just assuming that May is a No. 2 starter, based on... who knows. He hasn't shown that kind of ability as a starter in the majors, save for one short stretch, and he was never a top-tier pitching prospect in the minors. I know, I know. "Now we'll never know!" But the downside of finding that out is reducing your starter depth (some SP is probably gone if May is in the rotation) and severely weakening your bullpen. And if May proves not to be vastly superior than the alternative starting option, it could prove to be a very costly error. Very costly.

If you think that is universally true, you're mistaken. May's best three pitches are his fastball, changeup and curve. Plenty of pitchers don't have good sliders.

Could be great. Could be just a decent mid-rotation starter with efficiency issues, as opposed to a top-tier power arm in the bullpen. I'm not sure why everyone is so fixated on the one possibility. It's not like he was an elite starting pitching prospect. TR's point was that their last-place ranking in strikeouts is deceiving as it relates to the current group because their best power arms in the bullpen were absent or ineffective for half the season. The "point" people are making has nothing to do with what he said.

You realize that the question he was answering was very specifically about strikeouts, right? I was talking K/9 rate but either way Ryan's point was fair.

Jepsen's K-rate with the Twins was lower than his career mark, so...

Sounds to me like an awfully good problem to have! If May turns into a big asset at the back end of the bullpen, and they have enough quality depth in the rotation so as not to need him there... what the hell are we complaining about?

When Trevor May is pitching in relief, he ditches his slider and sinker. How come? "Neither one of those are swing-and-miss pitches really,” he says, "and that’s more what I’m trying to do in the bullpen.” That mindset is exactly why the Twins need May in that role, even if it means delaying the starting opportunity that he has certainly earned.In 2015, the Twins bullpen ranked last in the major leagues in strikeouts, right behind Detroit’s abysmal unit. Missing bats isn’t everything, but doing so effectively eliminates bad luck, bloopers and bleeders from the equation, which can be particularly critical in close late-game situations. General manager Terry Ryan is quick to point out that his team's last-place ranking is “a little deceiving” since they received only partial seasons from May and Kevin Jepsen, and Glen Perkins was not himself after the All-Star break. It’s a fair point. Even with little in the way of outside additions during the offseason, you’d expect more strikeouts – and better results – from the relief corps even if the Twins simply roll with the same group that finished last year, as it appears they basically will. But there’s no guarantee that Perkins will fully rebound from his dismal second half, nor that Jepsen will replicate his uncharacteristically excellent performance after being acquired. It is in this regard that May’s presence is vital. His stuff was good enough to yield quality strikeout numbers as a starter and plays up in relief, which consequentially led to an uptick in K-rate after he made the switch last summer. That was when he was learning on the fly. Now, the right-hander heads into the 2016 season priming himself as a reliever. That entails a lot of different things compared to starting. “You train a little bit differently,” May said of the alteration in approach. “You do a little bit less every day because you’ve got to be ready to go on a day-to-day basis instead of just looking forward to that one day.” In some ways, less is more. If he sticks in a relief role, May will pitch way fewer innings, but he’ll affect way more games, and he’ll be deployed in more high-leverage situations. He relishes the idea of being a designated go-to guy in those spots. "I see it as an opportunity to step into a role that wasn’t filled in the offseason,” he said. "I’m excited about it. I think I proved last year that I could do it. I’m looking to build on that success this year." Fans should be excited too. Because for all the hand-wringing about the lack of bullpen moves over the winter, May possesses a superior arsenal to many of the high-priced arms that were available on the market. He might be the most potent right-handed reliever to wear a Twins uniform since Joe Nathan. As you can see from his 2015 velocity chart (via Brooks Baseball), May’s pitches revved up across the board after he moved to the bullpen in July. His K/9 rate increased from 8.0 before July 1st to 10.0 afterward. Download attachment: mayvelo.png Flashes of his dominance have been on display this spring. His fastball has lit up the radar gun, clocking within a few ticks of triple digits, and his offspeeds have garnered plenty of awkward swings. In 8 2/3 innings of work, May has fanned 11 hitters, including three in his single frame on Wednesday. He has the makings of a bullpen ace, and one could argue that is an even more important asset than a reliable closer due to strategic usage. The Minnesota bullpen is invariably going to be a question mark going into the regular season, but without May it would be far more concerning. Only by blindly ignoring all of this team’s circumstances can one really question the decision. Another thing to keep in mind is that it’s not necessarily a permanent switch. Ryan has stated that he still views May as a future starter, and that’s definitely where the 26-year-old righty wants to end up. "Until that day they say you’re absolutely not a starter ever again, I’ll think that way,” May says, "because I still believe that I can do it.” There’s little reason to think he can’t. But for now, he’s dutifully embracing this current challenge. Now there's a breath of fresh air. Just as his swing-and-miss pitches will be in the late innings. Click here to view the article

Again: they know that Sano in RF is not ideal. They just don't really have a choice.

Suddenly, the race for the Twins fifth starter job has gotten rather interesting. Three weeks after Paul Molitor said it would take “something fairly significant” for Tyler Duffey to miss out on a rotation spot, the right-hander has a 6.48 ERA through three Grapefruit starts, and he got shelled on the minor-league side today. Meanwhile, Ricky Nolasco cruised through six scoreless innings against the Rays at Hammond.* It’s hard to say whether these coinciding events could be construed as “significant.” No one puts much stock into results on the minor-league fields, and Nolasco was facing a Rays lineup that was beyond watered down, since the team flew back from an exhibition in Cuba last night. Still, the big curve ball from Nolasco that drew rave reviews during his last outing was on full display today. He got more than half of his seven strikeouts with the hook, and said he thought his slider was even better. Of course, breaking balls have always been a strength for the 33-year-old. He claims the big difference-maker today was his fastball command. “Felt it pretty decent that last time out in the minor league game and it kind of carried over,” Nolasco said. “I think everything just kind of goes off that.” And as for his status in the rotation competition? "It’s not my decision. I’ll leave it up to those guys ... They know how I feel. We’ll see what happens." * Is there any scenario in which Paul Molitor would consider bringing Duffey, a former college closer, north as a reliever if Nolasco and Tommy Milone end up in the last two rotation spots? "I haven't really thought about that as an option for the circumstances that we're looking at," the manager said. In other words, probably not. * Molitor confirmed after the game that Ervin Santana will be the team’s starter on Opening Day, with Kyle Gibson and Phil Hughes following him in Baltimore. That lines up Gibson to pitch the home opener against the White Sox at Target Field on April 11th. I wrote about Santana setting a tone for the rotation earlier this week. * The Twins announced during the game that they had outrighted lefty Mike Strong from the 40-man roster, creating an opening that will likely be filled by non-roster invite Fernando Abad. The veteran Abad was always likely to win a bullpen spot, and it looks like he’s had a solid enough spring to lock it up. * Danny Santana was in the lineup at second base today, after starting at shortstop on Tuesday and in center field on Monday. Molitor said earlier this week that he’s trying to get a gauge on Santana’s capacity to serve in a utility role. “His positional experience is somewhat limited,” Molitor said. “I wouldn’t say we’re at that point where we’re convinced he can do all those things. It’s still something we’re trying to decide.” The general manager likes what Santana brings to the table as a bench piece. “He’s been around the diamond quite a bit this spring,” Terry Ryan said. “Of course he can really run. There’s a lot of value in that type of player.” * The Twins cut six from camp this morning, trimming the total number of remaining players to 37. I wrote up a quick article about what the cuts – which included one reliever who was in the bullpen for all of 2015 – mean for the bullpen competition. * Daniel Palka raised some eyebrows by hitting a pair of home runs when he traveled to Clearwater with the split-squad on Tuesday, including a mammoth blast that he pulled over the right field wall. Today, while playing with the Triple-A group in the game Duffey started, Palka hit another bomb, this time an opposite-field shot. “He has power, there’s no doubt,” Ryan said. “Go across there (to the minor-league side) and just watch him take batting practice.” The pop this spring has been as advertised from Palka, who has hit 51 home runs over the last two years between two levels of A-ball. Acquired in exchange for Chris Herrmann in the offseason, the 24-year-old is looking like a nice find, infusing more power into a system that is suddenly rather flush with it. Click here to view the article

The Twins optioned two players from camp this morning and reassigned four others. Taylor Rogers, J.R. Graham, Buddy Boshers, Carlos Paulino, Buck Britton and Wilfredo Tovar were all shipped out, trimming the number of remaining players to 37.This round of cuts brings more clarity to the bullpen race. Assuming that Fernando Abad and the loser of the fifth starter competition (Ricky Nolasco?) are both in, that leaves one remaining spot in a seven-man unit. Boshers (who I wrote about in yesterday’s notes) was not really a factor in the race, but Rogers and Graham – both on the 40-man roster – were in the mix. The remaining contenders for the job: Michael Tonkin, Ryan Pressly, Brandon Kintzler, Ryan O’Rourke, Dan Runzler. Presumably they’re going to go with a righty, and in my opinion, it’s between hard-throwers Tonkin and Pressly. Who would you like to see round out the Minnesota bullpen? Click here to view the article

Prior to attending TwinsFest in January, John Ryan Murphy had only visited Minnesota once in his life. It was last summer, when the Yankees faced the Twins at Target Field, and it was a memorable trip for the young backstop. He hit the biggest home run of his career on a Saturday night in late July, taking Glen Perkins deep for a three-run shot to snap a ninth-inning tie and lift New York to an 8-5 victory.The power flashes haven’t been all that frequent for Murphy, who has four homers and a .374 slugging percentage in 284 career plate appearances, but the Twins are counting on his continued growth in that department as well as others. “I don’t think he’s reached his peak,” said assistant general manager Rob Antony. “I think he has more potential." Adapting to his new surroundings in the Midwest will be the least of Murphy’s worries. For now, he’s more focused on building a rapport with his new battery-mates and learning their individual styles and tendencies. Having spent his entire career up to this point in one organization, he admits that the process of acclimating to a new staff has been a little more challenging than he expected. "It’s one thing to talk about the pitches, and talk about what they like to do, but you have to catch them,” Murphy said. "It comes with time. You have to be back there and see them, see what their curveball does. Everyone’s a little bit different." As Twins bench coach Joe Vavra sees it, Murphy is coming along nicely. Vavra was acting manager on Tuesday when the 24-year-old served as catcher for eight innings in a game where five Minnesota relievers combined to hold the Baltimore Orioles to one run on four hits. He credited Murphy for developing a “good ebb and flow” with the pitchers and pointed out that you rarely saw a call shaken off. “He’s real responsive to me,” Vavra said. “Real quick and understands the pitchers’ tempos.” Murphy didn’t take up catching full-time until his sophomore year of high school, after pitching and playing third base a freshman. He would have continued to refine his skills behind the plate in college at the University of Miami, but the Yankees lured him away with a $1.25 million signing bonus as a 2009 second-round draft pick after Murphy batted .627 with 11 homers as a senior. Antony said that the Twins had eyes on Murphy back then, but it wasn’t clear where he would play. “The Yankees took him and made him a catcher, and he really developed into a good receiver.” So six years later, with a blatant need at the position, the Twins traded away former first-round pick Aaron Hicks to bring Murphy aboard. Now, they’re hoping that he’ll continue to evolve both offensively and defensively. By all accounts, they’re pleased with where he’s at on the defensive end. But it looks as though his bat will be what makes or breaks him. That’s an area where Murphy has something to prove. While he was viewed as a strong offensive prospect as a prep (“He was a guy coming out of the draft we thought could hit,” said Antony), his .263/.327/.406 line in the minors doesn’t suggest a ton of upside, and this spring he hasn’t done much at all. After going 0-for-3 on Tuesday, he’s now batting .091 with zero extra-base hits in Grapefruit action. He has, however, shown a decent eye at the plate, drawing six walks against six strikeouts. And while his 685 career OPS in the big leagues is hardly impressive, he has improved his production each year. In 2015, as Brian McCann’s backup with the Yankees, he slashed .277/.327/.406. For a catcher who gets it done defensively, that’s more than adequate. Vavra, a former hitting coach, doesn’t put a ton of stock into Murphy’s spring slump. “He’s underneath a lot,” he said. “Underneath and probably a little late. It’s timing more than anything.” Maybe a little bit too much self-imposed pressure, as well. “First impression with us, obviously. He wants to do it all right away.” Fortunately, he doesn’t have to do it all right away. He’ll be splitting time this year with Kurt Suzuki, whose locker in the Hammond Stadium clubhouse is right next to his. With a veteran mentor, a fully supportive coaching staff and no obstacles blocking him from ultimately taking the reins as full-time starter, Murphy could hardly ask for a more ideal situation. “I’m certainly in a good position,” he acknowledges. Now, all he needs to do is grow. Click here to view the article

I think it's basically about deferring to the veteran. Plouffe has been the third baseman for the last three years, and he's an entrenched guy at this point. I too think he'd fare better out there than Sano but I get it, I guess. Believe me, as much as they try to sugarcoat it, the Twins have no illusions about what they're getting into. They know this is far from ideal.

I was too, to be honest. After he said that, I blinked a few times and said, "So, you didn't notice any difference in the second half?" And he basically replied, "Nah, not really." I think he's just frustrated about hearing it over and over again, and maybe a little peeved that this narrative has overshadowed what was a strong season overall. Obviously he knows that pitchers started taking advantage of his tendencies, and obviously he's doing something about it. He's always been pretty good about making adjustments (it's what has turned him from 8th round draft pick into All Star) so I'm fairly optimistic.