John Bonnes

When was the last time a Twins Rule 5 pick made the team for Opening Day? I honestly can't remember one since Santana.

I like the research and graphics, but I'm not sure what it all means. What it says to me is that the ball doesn't fly in Target Field the way it did in the dome, so the virtually identical dimensions aren'ts so identical. Just look at the spread of HRs to LF in the dome and in Target Field. What few home runs are going out are just barely going out. It might be that moving the fences in 20 feet could really make a difference. I'm just not sure how feasible that is from a spectator and cost standpoint. Given how hesitant the Twins seem to be to doing so, my guess is it causes some real problems in terms of cost or sight lines.

Jim Edmonds?

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But Doyle has options, right? Does Manship?

Don't believe the hype. There might be 66 guys in Twins spring training, but they aren't really competing for roster spots. In fact, there may not be a single roster spot to compete for. How come? Because of "options." Options are a MLB administrative rule that limits how long a team can keep a player on their 40-man roster but not bring them to the big leagues. Basically, they have three years before they need to commit to bringing that player to the majors. For a little more on it, check out this entry, where I compared it to the amount of time before you move from dating to married. If a player doesn't have "options" left, they cannot be sent to the minors without being offered to every other major league team for their 25-man roster. So a team risks losing that player, and that isn't a risk the Twins are usually anxious to take. Thus, a player without options almost always has the inside track to make it to Opening Day. And when you look over the 25 spots the Twins have available, player without options look like they're going to gobble up most of the open spots. Let's run through them. The Twins entered spring training with their lineup and rotation pretty set, which (barring any injuries) takes care of 14 of the 25 spots on the roster C - Joe Mauer 1B - Justin Morneau 2B - Alexi Casilla SS - Jamey Carroll 3B - Danny Valencia DH - Ryan Doumit RF - Josh Willingham CF - Denard Span LF - Ben Revere Rotation - Carl Pavano, Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn & Jason Marquis That leaves 11 spots, which probably includes four guys off the bench and seven guys in the bullpen. There are heavy favorites for each of them: Drew Butera is likely the backup catcher unless the Twins are really enamored with newly acquired JR Towles. Trevor Plouffe and Luke Hughes are both out of options, so they're almost locks to be on the bench. The fourth spot might be the only open spot, but the obvious option is Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who the Twins will be paying $3M whether he plays in the majors or minors. And there are similar roster crunches in the bullpen. Four of the seven spots will likely to Matt Capps, Glen Perkins, Joel Zumaya and Brian Duensing, all of whom are slotted for late-inning roles. And the other three spots? It turns out there are three relievers without options: Anthony Swarzak is out of options, is right-handed and did a nice job in the swingman role last year. It seems obvious that he would make it. Jeff Gray is a right-handed reliever who has pitched for several team the last couple of years. The Twins picked him up this offseason off of waivers because he was out of options. The Twins want at least one more right-hander in the bullpen, so he would seem to be an obvious front-runner Finally, Matt Maloney is a left-hander that the Twins also picked up this offseason because he was also out of options. He has mostly worked as a starter, but so did Perkins before the Twins moved him to the bullpen. And a third left-handed reliever might make sense given that Perkins won't be used situationally. Suddenly there are 0 spots left and another 41 guys in camp.

Don't believe the hype. There might be 66 guys in Twins spring training, but they aren't really competing for roster spots. In fact, there may not be a single roster spot to compete for. How come? Because of "options." Options are a MLB administrative rule that limits how long a team can keep a player on their 40-man roster but not bring them to the big leagues. Basically, they have three years before they need to commit to bringing that player to the majors. For a little more on it, check out this entry, where I compared it to the amount of time before you move from dating to married. If a player doesn't have "options" left, they cannot be sent to the minors without being offered to every other major league team for their 25-man roster. So a team risks losing that player, and that isn't a risk the Twins are usually anxious to take. Thus, a player without options almost always has the inside track to make it to Opening Day. And when you look over the 25 spots the Twins have available, player without options look like they're going to gobble up most of the open spots. Let's run through them. The Twins entered spring training with their lineup and rotation pretty set, which (barring any injuries) takes care of 14 of the 25 spots on the roster C - Joe Mauer 1B - Justin Morneau 2B - Alexi Casilla SS - Jamey Carroll 3B - Danny Valencia DH - Ryan Doumit RF - Josh Willingham CF - Denard Span LF - Ben Revere Rotation - Carl Pavano, Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn & Jason Marquis That leaves 11 spots, which probably includes four guys off the bench and seven guys in the bullpen. There are heavy favorites for each of them: Drew Butera is likely the backup catcher unless the Twins are really enamored with newly acquired JR Towles. Trevor Plouffe and Luke Hughes are both out of options, so they're almost locks to be on the bench. The fourth spot might be the only open spot, but the obvious option is Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who the Twins will be paying $3M whether he plays in the majors or minors. And there are similar roster crunches in the bullpen. Four of the seven spots will likely to Matt Capps, Glen Perkins, Joel Zumaya and Brian Duensing, all of whom are slotted for late-inning roles. And the other three spots? It turns out there are three relievers without options: Anthony Swarzak is out of options, is right-handed and did a nice job in the swingman role last year. It seems obvious that he would make it. Jeff Gray is a right-handed reliever who has pitched for several team the last couple of years. The Twins picked him up this offseason off of waivers because he was out of options. The Twins want at least one more right-hander in the bullpen, so he would seem to be an obvious front-runner Finally, Matt Maloney is a left-hander that the Twins also picked up this offseason because he was also out of options. He has mostly worked as a starter, but so did Perkins before the Twins moved him to the bullpen. And a third left-handed reliever might make sense given that Perkins won't be used situationally. Suddenly there are 0 spots left and another 41 guys in camp.

Casilla is going to have that breakthrough year this year, I can feel it. Just like I felt it last year and in 2009. It's just a matter of time.....

Seth, do you mean Gray is a given to make the 25-man roster? You said "40 man." I guess I would agree that both of these guys have the inside track. I can see the Twins carrying 3 LHPs in the bullpen, especially because Perkins isn't going to be really used as a situational lefty, so that would make room for Maloney. And gawd knows they could use a decent RHP in the bullpen. If so (and assuming they keep Swarkak, who is also out of options) that would make the bullpen: Capps - Closer Zumaya & Perkins - Setup men Duensing & Maloney - LH Relievers Swarzak & Gray - RH relievers Or am I missing someone obvious?

Accoring to MLBTR, here are the Twins without options this spring: Jeff Gray, Matt Maloney, Glen Perkins, Anthony Swarzak, Alexi Casilla, Luke Hughes, Trevor Plouffe The surprises here are Gray and Maloney, since I think we expected each of the others to be on the 25 man roster. Gray and maloney were picked up by Bill Smith before Ryan took over, have taken a spot on the 40-man all offseason (leading to the loss of Jim Hoey) and a pretty mediocre pitchers who are unlikely to make the 25-man. That just doesn't make sense. So are we undervaluing these guys? They seemingly would have the inside track over other fringe candidates (or even established guys with options, like Alex Burnett). I had better take a second look at them, I guess. All I really remember about them is they're ex-Krisvsky guys that I didn't think were good enough to warrant a 40-man roster spot.

I was incredulous that a long-term deal didn't get done last year, which looks dead wrong right now. I guess the ultimate response is "wait and see" since there really is no reason to make this decision now. but I gotta admit, I don't see anyway he's on the roster next year.

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Great research. You should be proud of this story. Twins fans can't find stuff like this anyplace else.

Why isn't this promoted to the front page?

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]119[/ATTACH]Aaron's car finally kicked, so we take this opportunity to go through each of the Twins players and talk about our expectations, including which car we would compare them to. (It's better than it sounds.) Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews).

It's brutal. If they can be near .500 through April, it'll be a pretty big victory. I did a quick look at the Twins schedule the last few years, and while there have been some tough series in April, nothing as consistently tough as this. FYI - I looked over the Twins schedule last Sept and talked a bit about it here: http://twinsgeek.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-2012-and-roadtrips.html Another big quirk is that just as the trade deadline ends, the Twins starts a huge stretch against the other AL Central teams. Starting on 8/31 they play 22 straight games against the other AL Central teams. August and September are going to be riveting if this is a close race. And if I remember right, their last two weeks of the season are brutal too. I think they have two series versus the Tigers and another set against the Yankees then.

You had Gonzales listed as 2nd, & he didn't make the top 50 at Twinkietown. I thnk it's safe to say that after Parmelee, there's a pretty good drop off. :-)

Whoa - seriously? That was one of their big undertakings, right? That was the big feather in Bill Smith's cap. Do you know why it closed? Was it the instability of the country?

Well, I disagree about the depth thing. After Parmelee, there is basically a steep drop off to whoever is next in terms of prospect status. This might be just finding someone to help out at AA for the year.

Anybody know his defenisive rep? I notice he had quite a bit of time in LF, not CF, in 2010.