Nick Nelson

After watching my hometown get blanketed with several inches of snow on Monday and Tuesday, I finally said, "Screw it, I need to get out of here." So I hopped on a plane and flew to Florida. OK, it wasn't quite that spontaneous, but I am down here in Ft. Myers, and making several trips to the ballpark this week, so I figured I would share some of my observations. On Wednesday, I had the chance to take in the tilt between the Twins and Puerto Rico's World Baseball Classic squad at Hammond Stadium, which ended in an 8-7 loss. Here are a few notes I thought I'd pass along: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3418[/ATTACH] * If you've been following this site or my writing, you may be aware that I'm a huge fan of Twins prospect Aaron Hicks. So naturally, he was one of the players I was most excited to see down here. Hicks was in the starting lineup on Wednesday, batting leadoff, and he did not disappoint. In his first at-bat, he took a couple pitches from Puerto Rico starter Giancarlo Alvarado befor[ATTACH=CONFIG]3420[/ATTACH]e drilling one over the right field fence for his second home run of the spring. He walked and singled in his next two plate appearances, finishing 2-for-2 on the day, and is now batting .375 in Grapefruit League action. Hicks is doing everything he needs to secure a spot on the Opening Day roster, but as Star Tribune beat writer Phil Miller pointed out when I was chatting with him outside the batting cages, rookies who are competing for a big-league job have a tendency to tighten up as Opening Day approaches. We'll have to see whether the Twins Daily No. 3 prospect can keep it up over the next few weeks. * Unfortunately, Hicks was the only player in the Twins lineup on this particular day who has a chance to actually make the starting lineup. You think Ron Gardenhire's getaway day lineups are bad? For this exhibition match-up, his No. 3 hitter was Mark Sobolewski and his cleanup man was Jeff Clement. Consequentially, there isn't too much to report about the performance of the offense, although they did manage to scrape together seven runs thanks in large part to bouts of wildness from the Puerto Rico pitching staff. * Beyond Hicks, two other players who appeared on our Top 10 prospects list were in action for the opposing team Wednesday. Eddie Rosario didn't start, but he replaced Irving Falu at second base early in the game. Right-hander J.O. Berrios came on in relief and pitched the third inning. Rosario didn't have a great game offensively. He flied out to the outfield twice, then singled against Alex Burnett in his third at-bat but was quickly picked off at first base. The 20-year-old did convert on his defensive chances, and turned a nice double play. Berrios looked great. His fastball clocked in the low 90s but showed plenty of life. He threw strikes and worked around a Hicks single to complete a shutout frame. He may be the most impressive pitcher on Puerto Rico's staff, and he's 18. * [ATTACH=CONFIG]3419[/ATTACH]Vance Worley was the Twins starter. He didn't look especially sharp in the first inning, and it probably didn't help that he had to face a lineup featuring Angel Pagan, Carlos Beltran, Alex Rios and Yadier Molina among its first five hitters. Fortunately, Worley settled in and eventually lasted into the fourth before reaching his pitch limit. He relied on a low-90s fastball and mixed in an effective slider, rarely missing bats but jamming several hitters. The right-hander is one of the few projected members of the Twins rotation with whom I have a good idea of what to expect. He's not going to blow people away but he has solid stuff and will throw strikes. As long as he can stay healthy, he'll be a quality mid-rotation arm. * Reporters in Ft. Myers had been talking about the struggles of the Twins bullpen early on, and that trend continued Wednesday. Jared Burton hit the first batter he faced with a pitch and then gave up a long home run to something called Pedro Valdes. Burnett looked terrible, yielding five hits and two walks while recording just four outs. In fact, the only Twins reliever who had a remotely effective outing was Anthony Slama. Go figure. * The Twins have a pair of split-squad games scheduled for Thursday, and I'll be in attendance for the match-up at Hammond against the Red Sox. Kevin Correia is slated to start, and several legitimate major-leaguers figure to be in the lineup this time, so I'm sure I'll have plenty more notes to share afterwards. Stay tuned.

The short answer? No. The long answer? Also no. Classic. Well done EJ.

Seems safe to say the Dozier at SS experiment is over. Probably for the best. Really hope he can settle in at second, he's got all the skills necessary to be a serviceable piece there for a while.

Yes. How dare they try to make money and pay their writers? Jerks!

Wasn't Escobar converted from pitcher to infielder not that long ago? That'd provide a legit reason to believe his offensive upside may be higher than the numbers suggest.

And on the bases. But this is where having two speedy backup infielders available would be advantageous. You pinch-hit Thome for, say, Dozier or Florimon, then replace Thome with Escobar. At that point, you'd still have Carroll in your back pocket. It gets a little dicey if you've only got one utility guy on hand, which is why in order to make room for Thome either Butera must go or the bench must be expanded.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1424-Building-a-Bench

While center field is still in flux, it is fairly clear at this point how the Twins envision their starting lineup coming together at the start of the season. Chris Parmelee will be taking over for Ben Revere in right, and Ron Gardenhire has made no secret of the fact that he'd like to see Brian Dozier and Pedro Florimon take the reigns in the middle infield. All other positions will be occupied by players reprising their roles from 2012. There is less certainty when it comes to the composition of the bench. When I projected the Opening Day roster in my spring training preview, I guessed that the Twins would follow the typical Gardy formula: short bench (resulting from a seven-man bullpen) populated by a third catcher and a bunch of defensive specialists who can pinch-run. The names I listed were Drew Butera, Jamey Carroll, Eduardo Escobar and Darin Mastroianni. It's still plenty plausible that the Twins could enter the season with that very group comprising their bench but a few recent comments and developments have added some interesting twists to this storyline. First, there's Jim Thome. His name has been buzzing around Twins Territory recently, and while there initially appeared to be little steam behind the rumors, it sounds more and more like Gardenhire would really like for it to happen. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3392[/ATTACH] And why wouldn't he? The problem with the Twins' current bench candidates is that none of them are threats with the bat, which leaves the manager in a tough position in late-game situations when guys like Florimon, Dozier or Butera are due up. Thome is extremely limited at this point in his career but he'll always be a weapon as a pinch-hitter and his presence would be a treat for teammates and fans. The challenge is creating space on the bench, but that could potentially be accomplished by removing Butera from the equation. Would the Twins do such a thing? It has seemed unlikely, given that they re-upped him for $700,000 and Gardy has always enjoyed the comfort of having a third backstop on the roster, but recent reports that Escobar -- who was an emergency third catcher with the White Sox last year -- is getting in some work behind the plate suggest that the Twins may be trying to mitigate that need. If the Twins want to pass on Thome and look elsewhere for a bit of pop on the bench, there are several other intriguing candidates in camp, including Chris Collabello -- one of the feel good stories of this spring. Joe Benson could be a sleeper as well. With few starting jobs up in the air on offense, these open bench spots will provide some of the most compelling drama for fans craving position battles here in March. Personally, I hope the Twins make an effort to get creative and stray away from their norm. Why not?

I've assumed Escobar would make the roster because Gardy likes to have a defensive-minded backup IF and I'm not sure they love playing Carroll's arm at short. If Escobar could truly qualify as an "emergency third catcher" and eliminate the need to keep Butera around, that would be a nice bonus.

Some of us were saying this in spring training 2011. Just sayin.

As others have pointed out, the Twins bought out the rest of Blackburn's arb years when they still had four years left of control over him, which made little sense considering he was already performing as well as could be expected. Also, the Twins played 163 games in 2008 so it's pretty fair to say that every win counted, and Blackburn was one of best starters on the team. Replacing him with an inferior arm for even the first three weeks of the season could have been the difference between forcing a tiebreaker with Chicago and falling short (though in hindsight obviously it doesn't make a difference). The same goes for the example with Mauer in 2004. During the short time he played that year it was obvious he was MLB-ready; the alternative would have been starting Henry Blanco for the first three weeks of the season which -- with a playoff-caliber club -- is totally inexcusable. Yeah, it sucks that Mauer got hurt and spent most of the season accruing time in the MLB disabled list but who could have seen that coming?

OK, OK. The reaction from OTC was a little strong but the point was valid. This is not the first time we've had issues with this particular user posting thread titles that are sensationalized and misleading; we went through this same song and dance when he reported a (false) rumor about Scott Baker signing with the Twins and titled the thread to make it sound like a fact. I changed the name of this thread... Thrylos: please stop doing this or you will face future post deletion or temp bans. Anyway, it's too bad that the semantics have caused everyone to get so sidetracked because the report about Harden and Perez is at least noteworthy if unsurprising. There's a reason these guys signed minor-league deals and there's a reason Harden's opt-out clause doesn't kick in until the trade deadline. These are the kind of projects you have to be slow and careful with.

I think it's more about security. The sooner Gibson starts his clock, the sooner he'll be in line for that potential big multi-year deal that will set him up for life. This is of extreme importance to a baseball player, because careers can take a sudden turn for the worse at any time, especially for pitchers. Completely agree. Mauer's mega-deal was the second contract extension he signed in his career. The Twins gave him one in 2007 that bought out his final years of arb and his first year of free agency. The timing of the 2010 extension was pretty unfortunate but wasn't really dictated by his service clock... it was dictated by the Twins' previous decisions and by circumstance. Had they not signed him to that first cost-certainty contract, his final year of team control would have been 2009, and if they'd waited to extend him until before that season... well, he probably would have cost a lot less. To be clear, this isn't intended as a criticism because it's all viewed in hindsight.

I might agree with that, but that's not what we're talking about here. Keeping a guy down for developmental reasons is different than keeping him down for financial reasons. I certainly don't think calling Gomez up when they did had any real adverse effect on the Twins in terms of what they had to pay him or how long they were able to keep him (his service clock had already been started by the Mets anyway). Besides, if Hicks or whoever were to struggle the way Gomez (or Parmelee, or Hendriks) did when he joined the team at the start of the season, you send him back to the minors to work on some things and the entire point is moot.

Why not just have him pitch those first 50 innings in the majors is he appears ready? Also, if we unpack this theory a little bit we find that the math doesn't really make sense -- you're saying he should join the Twins after six weeks and then pitch 100 innings through the end of September, which would probably mean averaging under five frames per start. They're just not going to do that. The goal this year is to build up his strength to the point where he's throwing ~100/pitches per game and hopefully completing six or seven innings regularly. Have you seen me heartily endorsing their offseason approach? In any event, this is a different matter. We're talking about choosing the best players out of the ones they already have available. I'm not "blaming" the Twins -- they haven't done anything yet. I'm pointing out that there's an additional layer to this thing. The team certainly wouldn't be doing anything illegal by exploiting that loophole but it would have the potential to be rather upsetting for Gibson, especially if he pitches really well this spring (which, frankly, I fully expect him to). And as I said in the article, in my mind keeping Gibson a happy organizational soldier will be more important to his long-term future here than the service clock timeline, which can be handled in many different ways. Do I think this specific instance will have a major impact on the desire of free agents to sign here? No. I do think that the Twins need to be conscious of how their actions are viewed, though. Right after hacking $30 million off their payroll in two years, they're going to bury good prospects who can help them now for the sake of saving a few million bucks several years down the line? I don't think that will go unnoticed if it continues to become a trend. If I'm a free agent looking to sign an incentive-laden deal, I'd probably have a hard time believing the Twins would be inclined to let me reach all of my incentives, or activate my expensive option, or build around me with quality players, if they're routinely exercising that type of penny-pinching.

And has it ever demonstrably hurt them?

The Blackburn contract was ill-advised but wasn't forced by his service clock. They gave him that extension when they still had four years left of team control. I hope that the Twins will exercise better judgment with Gibson (it should be easier since he's a much better pitcher). So far the examples that have been provided as warnings -- Mauer and Blackburn -- don't really fit. I'm still waiting to hear of an instance where the Twins have actually been hurt by calling a guy up "too early." There's a whole lot of theorizing going on and not a lot of real-life application. They're about as frugal as can be and they don't seem to have much reluctance to start either Hicks nor Gibson on the Opening Day roster. That says something, to me at least. I'm sure they're well aware of the service clock dynamics in play.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1419-Handling-Gibson

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3377[/ATTACH]As they try to rebuild their shattered starting pitching corps, the Twins are relying on Kyle Gibson to become a fixture in the rotation. Whereas the rest of the organization’s top pitching prospects are widely considered to be at least a year or two away, Gibson is ready now. After being sidetracked by Tommy John surgery, he’s returned throwing harder than ever and – much like in his first big-league camp in 2011 – he is impressing coaches and onlookers with his poise and polish. He is a beacon of hope for the future that the Twins can present to fans now; a bridge to what they hope will be a revamped young rotation that returns them to relevance. Considering his importance to their short-term and long-term plans, Gibson will obviously need to be handled carefully. From a physical standpoint, the Twins are addressing that by limiting his inning total for this season. But what about from a financial standpoint? The decisions made this spring, and later in the summer, will have a considerable bearing on when he'll be in line for free agency. Once a prospect graduates to the majors his service clock kicks in. From that point, the team owns his rights for the equivalent of six full seasons. His clock pauses if he is sent to the minors (for reasons other than injury rehab) but he must spend at least 20 days there for the stint to be counted against MLB service. In other words, if Gibson was sent to the minors for 15 days this season – either at the outset of the campaign or at some point during – he would still have an opportunity to accrue a full year of major-league service. If that stint were to extend to 20 or more days, the time logged in the minors would be subtracted from his service time and he’d be unable to accrue a full year. In essence, this would push his service clock back by a full year. He won’t be able to rack up six full seasons of MLB service over the next six years, thus extending the Twins’ control over him by another season. It is for this reason that we often hear about teams wanting to hold down top prospects for the first three or four weeks of the season, even after they’ve been deemed ready for action. The Rays are known for it. Many believe the Twins should do it with Aaron Hicks. It’s a perfectly logical business decision. But there’s more complexity to this dynamic than just business, especially as it pertains to Gibson. One the one hand, if the Twins bring him north out of camp, let him pitch his allotted 130-140 innings and then shelf him, he will accrue a full year of service time while pitching only a partial season for a team that’s probably going to be near the bottom of the standings. That’s hardly ideal. On the other hand, the Twins would eat away a good chunk of his limited innings by sending him to Triple-A for even three weeks, which would be tough to stomach if the coaching staff truly believes he’s ready for the majors. Sending him to the minors in August before shutting him down would stop his service clock but would probably raise the ire of his agent and the players’ association unless his performance merited the demotion. In addition, one can argue that the Twins have a responsibility to put their best team on the field, even if it’s widely believed that this is a lost season. It’s one thing if you can assemble five respectable starters to hold down the fort until Gibson’s postponed arrival date, but if other hurlers like Scott Diamond or Mike Pelfrey need to start the year on the DL, you’re reaching pretty far down to grab a replacement. We also have to look at this from the player’s perspective. Gibson, who did everything he could after being drafted to put himself on the fast track to the majors, had his timeline pushed back dramatically by the Tommy John procedure. He’s already 25 and up to this point he hasn’t really made any money in his career outside of his signing bonus. A baseball player’s opportunity to earn is finite, and Gibson is already looking at being 32 before he has a chance to hit that big free agent payday. To have that milestone pushed back further – despite his proving himself in spring training – so that the Twins can save a little money down the line would be understandably frustrating and could create bad blood. Fans may recall the situations that developed when the agents of Francisco Liriano and Glen Perkins accused the Twins of employing a similar clock-delaying strategy in years past, and in those cases the club actually had solid ground because of the players’ performances. Keeping Gibson happy is probably more essential than anything to keeping him in a Twins uniform long-term, and if the team does right by him they shouldn’t have any trouble retaining him for as long as they like. If the young hurler pans out, then by the time he’s approaching that distant free agent eligibility date the Twins will surely approach him about an extension that buys out his remaining arbitration years and his first few years of free agency (think Scott Baker). At that point, all these concerns about the hypothetical end of his service clock will become irrelevant. The only thing that changes is that the Twins might have to pay him a little more, a little sooner. In this era of Target Field and increased financial flexibility, that shouldn’t be an issue. Personally, I’d rather have this organization form a rep as one that rewards players based on merit, not based on the approach that protects their financial interests. Given the questions raised over the past offseason about free agents’ desire to sign here, I think the Twins need to be very conscious of how they’re viewed by players and agents around the league. If Gibson shows signs this spring that he could use a bit more seasoning in Triple-A (which would hardly be shocking) then it would be wise to send him to Rochester for development, and the delayed clock is an added benefit. But if he does enough to convince coaches he’s ready to pitch in the majors, give him a spot in the starting rotation and allow him to begin establishing himself as a big-league ballplayer. The rest, as they say, will take care of itself.

What if Diamond isn't ready? Or Pelfrey needs the full 12 months like nearly every other Tommy John rehabber? I'd say at least one of those two is likely to be unavailable. Suddenly, the guy you're replacing Gibson with is probably significantly worse. I know, I know... it's only three weeks in what everyone is chalking up as a lost season. But I can't accept the decision to go north with an unnecessary weak link in the rotation based on the possibility you'll have to pay the guy a little earlier. Again, this is all contingent on Gibson demonstrating that he is clearly ready. If the coaching staff decides that he could use a little more seasoning in Triple-A (which is possible given that he hasn't pitched there a ton) then you let him start the season there and the service clock extension is an added benefit. But the decision should be based on what's best for the team and the player's development.