Nick Nelson

You've gotta be kidding. It's the first week of spring training. The "starter" threw a whopping two innings.

I doubt any of those guys will be tried out as relievers, except for Perdomo who was never a starter. They're rotation depth.

To me, Perez and Harden are in a different class from Roenicke and the other guys I mentioned. They are injury flyers with histories of dominating. To me, that's a better form of gamble. You get them into spring training and see if they're healthy. If so, maybe you get Jared Burton. If not, maybe you get Joel Zumaya -- nothing's really hurt. What's frustrating is watching the Twins run out the string with a bunch of aging minor-league journeymen carrying hittable stuff and no real upside. I don't see what purpose it serves.

I don't think Swarzak is at the top of the list to be removed from the 40-man. Of course, there's one way to find out for sure...

I assume you're referring to Dozier. He'll turn 26 in May; how much developing does he really have left to do? I think the Twins benefit more from taking a long look at him and seeing what's there, rather than delaying that process with more time at Triple-A. He's had his chance to shake out the MLB jitters, so if he fails again this year it's time to look for another solution.

I've been to many spring training games at Hammond, and I would put no stock into that reading. Last time I was there, they had Duensing registering at 96. Having said that, the pitch was probably somewhere in that neighborhood, and that's a good sign. Gibson should be quite nasty if he's sitting in the mid-90s.

It's a good question and I can't figure out the answer. How is it that no team will even gamble a roster spot on giving him an extended look? How can there be such widespread agreement that a guy who dominates hitters to that degree at the highest level of the minors has no chance of being an asset in the majors? I'm past the point of criticizing the Twins on it really, it just boggles my mind.

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1405-Finding-Relief

When the Twins rose to prominence after the turn of the millennium, dominating the AL Central for nearly a decade, they always relied on a steady bullpen that protected leads. During that time, Terry Ryan was extremely adept at plucking overlooked assets from other organizations, which allowed him to build effective relief units on the cheap. There are many examples. Matt Guerrier was a nondescript Pirates farmhand when the Twins grabbed him off waivers in 2003. Dennys Reyes was released by the Padres midway through '05 before Ryan signed him and watched him blossom into an elite lefty specialist. Joe Nathan was a failed starter and then a setup man with the Giants; with the Twins, he instantly became a top closer in the game. This was a hallmark of Ryan's first stint at the helm. Whether it was more on him or the scouts he had in place, his regime showed a remarkable ability to capture underutilized arms and get the most out of them. That's a great way to build bullpens, because spending big money on relievers is dangerous given the volatility quotient. Somewhere along the line, the Twins started failing in this department. Most of the discarded arms from other organizations that they've taken flyers on have been baffling at first and ultimately just frustrating. When you look at predictable wash-outs like Dusty Hughes, Jim Gray, Jim Hoey and Matt Maloney, it's difficult to figure out just what the thought process was. These were all older players with relatively bad track records who showed little in their time with the Twins but still got extended opportunities, sometimes over deserving internal candidates. The Twins hit big on Jared Burton, who is the resounding success story for this strategy over the past several years, but he was more of an injury gamble than a talent gamble, having previously established himself as a standout setup man in the National League. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3341[/ATTACH] When you look at the crop of guys brought in to compete for spots this year, you see more of those talent gambles and it's difficult to have faith given the trends we've seen recently. There's Tim Wood, a minor-league signee who pitched well in Triple-A last year… as a 29-year-old. Wood's career numbers are mediocre and he's been brutal during limited time in the majors. But – like Hoey and Gray – he does throw hard. Then you've got Josh Roenicke, a rubber-armed righty claimed off waivers from the Rockies in November. Roenicke made 63 appearances for Colorado last year, logging almost 90 innings and posting a shiny 3.25 ERA, but his strikeout-to-walk ratio was ugly at 54/43. Like Wood, he's a 30-year-old without much meaningful success in his track record. Also in the fold is Ryan Pressly, the Rule 5 pick out of the Red Sox organization. A former 11th-round draft pick, he failed to gain traction in pro ball as a starter so last year he switched to the bullpen and had a nice run in Double-A last year as a reliever. He then impressed in the Arizona Fall League, which apparently helped draw the Twins to him. Pressly is only 24 and just transitioned to a new role, so it's easy to see the upside with him compared to Wood and Roenicke. Still, he has proven very little up to this point and his status as a Rule 5 pick adds a wrinkle: the Twins would need to keep him on the roster all season long or return him to Boston, barring a trade. Will one of these three get a shot? Personally I'd rather see the opportunity go to a player from within the organization, like Anthony Slama or Deolis Guerra or Tyler Robertson. Considering their typical attitude you'd think the Twins would agree. Nevertheless, I think there's a good chance we see the team gamble on one of the arms brought in from outside. That approach has been a boon for them in the past, but troubling recent decisions make it tougher to believe that the Twins are gambling on the right guys.

Well, he was (arguably) the best reliever in the IL who didn't get an extended big-league promotion at any point, so that's a pretty significant caveat. He was also 28 and 29 years old. He may throw hard, but it hasn't resulted in especially great K-rates. Gray and Hoey threw hard too...

I don't know what reason there is to think Tim Wood is going to be any good. I get that the Twins like him, but the Twins also liked Dusty Hughes and Jim Gray and Matt Maloney.

True, but there are plenty of people that have to sign off on these decisions and the GM is the one executing them. This is an organizational thing; the Twins seem to evaluate shortstops in a different (and - if the results bear it out - worse) way than other teams in the league. Florimon is a sign that they're staying on that same path, which is frustrating.

Why do you care so much about the generic sound bytes they give out to the media? Utterly meaningless. Whether Terry Ryan tells a reporter that he wants to win the division or win the World Series (a matter of semantics, honestly) has no bearing on what will happen. Anyway, making the playoffs is a fine goal. If your team is built to make the playoffs, it is by definition built to contend for a championship. Your implication seems to be that once they reach the postseason they stop trying, which just comes off as ignorant. For multiple reasons, this illustrates that you do not understand what a crapshoot is.

I think you can certainly argue that the Twins have not generally been well built to win in the playoffs. As a rule, teams with high-end starters, power hitting and (perhaps most importantly) experience are going to be better off, which helps explain the Yankees' string of success not so long ago, but not even those things are fail safe by any means. Just look at the Yankees lately. Won 95 games last year, then got pressed in the ALDS by the mediocre Orioles and trounced in the ALCS by the Tigers. The prior year the Yanks won 97 in the regular season and got knocked off in the first round. At the end of the day, it really is more random than anything. As grover astutely put it, we're talking about 5-7 game series between the eight best teams in the game. No one blinks when the Royals beat the Yankees in a three-game series during the regular season. That's baseball. For everyone who says an ace is the be-all, end-all ingredient for playoff success, consider that the Twins last won a playoff series with Joe Mays as their ace. In three of the next four years, they dropped out in first round with Johan Santana -- indisputably one of the greatest pitchers in the game -- fronting their rotation.

He's not the one constructing the rosters, so I'd say the problem goes beyond him.

And while I'm willing to believe that there is more than meets the eye with some players, it's awfully difficult to lend any credibility when the Twins use this type of reasoning to make blatantly horrible decisions like choosing Castro over Bartlett, Nishioka over Hardy, or Casilla over anybody. At what point do they take a step back and say, "We need to start reevaluating how we assess the shortstop position"?

I don't really have any idea what their win total will be, but I would like to see them put the best team on the field to start the season. I'm really not concerned about the guy's contract situation six years down the line. The phrase "it'll take care of itself" comes to mind, especially when you've got younger outfield prospects coming through the pipeline that could make him a trade candidate long before then.

Good lord, are you going to take every single quote posted on this board and spin it as proof that the Twins don't want to win a World Series? There is not a single player or coach in all of baseball that does not desperately want to win the World Series -- I can pretty much guarantee you that. It's time to put your bizarre obsession with this absurd notion to rest, or at least keep it to yourself.

Right. It's not hard to understand what he's getting at it -- the shortstop is the captain of the infield and certain responsibilities come along with that. What is hard to understand is why we should accept the Twins continually putting so much stock into an intangible quality with no discernible value. James Beresford might be great at controlling the infield but that doesn't overshadow his larger weaknesses. Ditto Pedro Florimon.

Agreed. I worried that the beat might suffer from losing Christensen and Mackey, who were both very good, but Miller is an awesome writer and I've been very impressed with Berardino.

http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_22631504/minnesota-twins-scott-diamond-takes-slow-steady-route Nice piece from the Pioneer Press’ new beat guy detailing Scott Diamond’s recovery from offseason elbow surgery. The LHP states that he incurred the bone chips (or, I assume, first noticed them) when jumping rope in December, which answers the question many have asked about why he didn’t undergo the surgery until then. He called it a “freak mishap” (the number of those that have occurred to current/former Twins pitchers this offseason is mind-boggling). Also, it seems like the writing is on the wall that Diamond will not be ready for the start of the season:

Guess Gardy must have gotten some of the good stuff then.

They did a really great job with this, and I'm excited to see more. I think the ones that follow in the series will have much more meat.