Quick Notes: Feb. 12

Right when I go and figure the Twins are done making moves, they go and make a move. However, it's not a move to get terribly excited about.

The Twins claimed outfielder Darin Mastroianni off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays. This looks like it's mostly a minor league filler move. One has to be skeptical about claiming players off waivers -- after all, there's a reason he was put on waivers in the first place.

In order to make room on the 40-man roster, they designated RHP Esmerling Vasquez for assignment -- which means they have to trade him or pass him through waivers and put him on the minor league roster. The Twins claimed Vasquez off waivers at the end of last season.

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It looks like I might have to make sure my injury paper doll machine is fully tuned up early in the 2012 season.

Luke Hughes sprained his shoulder in a home plate collision during an Australian Winter League game. He's been shut down 3-4 weeks. Which is kind of too bad, because his team, the Perth Heat, went on to win the Australian Baseball League championship, and he had to miss it.

I'll refrain from creating a paper doll for him for now. He's not due to miss much playing time during Spring Training, so he doesn't need one yet. However, if he, baseball gods forbid, suffers a setback or he doesn't heal as expected, I'll be on top of it.

Just a note to the players for anyone who is unclear: Having an injury paper doll is a bad thing. Continued good health is the goal here.

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Spring Training is very close. The equipment truck has been loaded and is headed to Fort Myers. It's such a big task that everyone needs to lend a hand -- even TC the mascot:



Very exciting!

DL Report: Alexi Casilla

I was kind of hoping that I could be done doing this. No such luck. Only seven guys on the active roster have not been involved in a DL or minor-league transaction. Seven. I'm still hoping that it won't go down to zero.

The Twins have placed Alexi Casilla on the 15-day DL with a Grade-1 (mild) hamstring strain. He pulled it running the bases during Wednesday's game.

Luckily the strain is mild, but hammy injuries are tricky. If they're not allowed to heal fully, they can become nagging problems. He needs his legs strong, and the Twins can't really afford to let him rest it long enough without getting someone in to replace him.

Luke Hughes has been called up from Rochester to replace Casilla.

Other transactions:

The Twins decided that they no longer need to carry 13 pitchers, so they reassigned RP Chuck James to AAA and recalled IF Matt Tolbert.

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Don't forget to enter into the drawing to win the very nice 1991 World Series Collector's DVD Set. Check them out in the sidebar on the right. Just let me know you want to enter the drawing, and you're in.

DL Report (Belated): Scott Baker

I knew it. I knew the minute I announced that I was on vacation, someone would need to go on the DL. I'm back now, but it's kind of too late, because he's already been activated. However, every guy who hits the DL deserves a paper doll, regardless of my timing.

On July 17, the Twins placed Scott Baker on the DL, retroactive to July 7, with a right flexor strain. This was pretty much a paperwork move so that he could rest it one more start and the team could call up another pitcher for a spot start.

The flexor is the tendon that allows the elbow and wrist to bend.

Scott Diamond, who started in Monday evening's game, was called up to take his spot. The Twins also sent down Matt Tolbert to make room for Chuck James for additional pitching help.

Baker was activated Saturday, and pitched five good innings. Because pitching has been such a problem lately, the Twins felt like they needed to keep James around, so they were forced to send Luke Hughes down to make room.

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Other transactions:


Jason Kubel was activated Friday from his ankle injury. Scott Diamond was sent down to make room.

Kevin Slowey was activated from the DL from his oblique injury and was reassigned to AAA Rochester.

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I'll have a report sometime later on all the baseball I saw while I was on vacation. Right now, I have piles of laundry to do.

Utility Guys and Shoes

I was thinking about Nicky Punto today. Mostly because I was wearing the shoes I compared him to on Nick Punto Day last year. I was thinking I should get rid of those shoes -- they are wearing out, -- but the shoes I was going to replace them with broke. Literally broke. In half. Both of them.You can't get good replacements these days.

Which is also true of utility players, I guess. Although I'm not aware of the current crop of potential bench-infielders to have literally broken in half. That would be unfortunate. But I digress.

I loved Nick Punto as a utility guy. Yeah, I didn't love that he was making $4.5 million to be a utility guy. But that role was perfect for him. But he's a Cardinal now. A Cardinal with a hernia.

So, who will be the bench infielder for Gardy this year? Take your pick of Matt "Tigger" Tolbert, Trevor "Error-boy" Plouffe, and Luke "Fireworks" Hughes.

Tolbert has the most major league experience, and, when spring training started, was the one everyone figured would come north. I call him "Tigger" because he's one of those guys who never stops bouncing around; seriously, have you ever seen him chew gum? It's cute for about ten minutes, then it's trying. I have a feeling Gardy feels the same way too. According to LaVelle E Neal of the STrib, he's still got a minor-league option left, so he's not completely a shoo-in. But he is reasonably fast and can pinch run whenever Jim Thome gets on base late in games.

Plouffe wasn't really impressive the few games he did spend in the major leagues (.146 BA! Yikes!). And he's been having a horrible spring. He's committed a team-leading 6 errors. And many of them seem to happen when Joe Nathan is on the mound. Not cool, Trev. Not cool at all. It's really hard to have a ton of confidence in him.

And then we have Hughes. When spring training started, he was just one of the lucky minor-leaguers who was invited to the big league camp. No one really expected him to do much more than get some experience. But he had different ideas. Seems like he hits a home run every other at-bat. It might be tempting to bring him up, but I'm not sure he's ready. Plus, he has a history of being injury-prone.

So, yeah, kind of slim pickings. Add to this that I'm not entirely comfortable with the starting middle-infielders. Nishioka will probably be ok, but he's still getting acclimated to MLB. But Gardy handed shortstop -- the position of leadership -- to Alexi Casilla. He could be brilliant; he could be brutal. No one knows. While I hope he'll be ok -- good grief, he's had enough experience by now -- I'm just not confident. I just hope he is.

Ok. So I doubt things are as bleak for the middle infield as I'm making them seem. But I won't be surprised if these guys give me indigestion just a little. I miss Nicky Punto.

And I need new shoes.

Twins at Tigers -- Expecting Excellence (and Not Always Getting It)

Recap:
Tuesday -- Twins 2 - Tigers 0
Wednesday -- Twins 6 - Tigers 11 (!)
Thursday -- Twins 0 - Tigers 3

Twins drop series 1-2 (first dropped series and first two-game losing streak all season)

Record: 14 - 8

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Generally speaking, sports fans expect excellence from their teams. If not, then what's the point? Passion is part of the bargain. The word "fan" itself proves it; it's short for "fanatic." Therefore, dispassionate people can't really be called "fans"; if they like sports at all, they're merely admirers or connoisseurs, right?

So, what's my point? Well, part of the passion-pact is that we fans expect excellence from our team. Yeah, pretty much all the time. It's the deal -- you play well, I'll be happy; you suck, I'll be unhappy. Simple. All I ask is that everyone does his job -- excellently.

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Fransisco Liriano
So, how excellent was he on Tuesday? Wow. And the best part? It's still kind of unexpected -- we're still waiting for last year's version of Frankie to show himself. But, for the third start in a row, he sparkled. It was a work of art.

Seth Stohs asked on his Facebook page something like (I'm paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to go back and look it up) "can we finally say the 2006 version of Liriano is back?" To which I replied something like (paraphrasing again; lazy again, er, still) "Who's to say we even want the 2006 version of Liriano? That guy wasn't a smart pitcher and because he always wanted to overpower batters, he hurt himself. The 2010 version is a much better, and much smarter pitcher. It looks like he trusts his stuff, and his catcher, much more. He seems calmer and more confident. Leave the 2006 version in the past. I like the 2010 version better. I hope he can keep it up."

In fact, Eric Karabell on ESPN's Baseball Today podcast predicted Liriano will be the AL Cy Young Award winner. Now, I'm not quite ready to go that far, but I'm sure having fun watching him.

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Denard Span
Sometimes a man displays excellence off the field. And sometimes a man displays his excellence in how he responds to a less-than-excellent moment. On Tuesday, Denard lost his cool because the umpire, Paul Emmel, was not doing his job excellently. Denard argued balls and strikes and then threw his bat in frustration. And because of it, he was ejected from the game, which lead to some interesting defensive replacements.

Now, many passionate Twins fans were quick to forgive Span; Emmel's strike zone was ridiculous. But it was still a bad moment for Denard, and he wasn't proud of it. But the excellent part came after the game: he apologized to the umpiring crew, issued an apology to the press, and apologized on Twitter. He was perfectly contrite and he promised to try to avoid doing that again.

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Luke Hughes
It didn't take long for him to display a nice little outburst of excellence. In his first Major League at bat, he deposited a fastball into the right-field seats. The last time a Twin homered in his first Major League at bat was Andre David in 1984. Excellent!

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Jesse Crain
So, there's a reason a lot of people call Jesse "Crain-wreck." I know he can be excellent. I've seen him be excellent. But when he's not excellent, he's a looooong way away from excellent. And Wednesday, he and excellent were miles apart.

I know he was trotted out in a difficult situation. I know that Scott Baker and Pat Neshek weren't exactly excellent themselves. But, damn, watching Crain was just plain painful.

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Carl Pavano
He was excellent on Thursday. Too bad he wasn't excellent enough, and Dontrelle Willis (of all people) was excellenter. And too bad the Twins bats weren't excellent at all.

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Umpires
For the second series in a row, and third time in a week, the umpires kind of took the concept of excellence and sent it to the showers.

• On Saturday (at Kansas City), umpire Greg Gibson called Scott Podsednik out at 2nd to end the game when JJ Hardy bobbled the ball and threw to Orlando Hudson clearly after Podsednik reached. A game should never be decided on such a horrible call.
• On Tuesday, umpire Paul Emmel, who early in the game enforced a reasonable strike zone, suddenly started calling very obvious outside balls as strikes. He was awfully quick to eject Span for arguing. Now there will always be bad balls/strikes calls, but actually changing the entire strike zone in the middle of the game is not cool.
• On Wednesday, umpire Paul Emmel (again!) called an awesome running catch and subsequent drop by Denard Span a no-catch. Span clearly took about three steps with the ball in his glove before he dropped it as he exchanged it to his throwing hand. Emmel defended his call by quoting the part of the rule that says the player should "hold the ball long enough to prove that he has complete control." Umm. Three steps is a pretty long time. But ultimately, the umpires admitted that they lost sight of the play. Again, not cool. And I'm absolutely convinced that it changed the game against the Twins.

I know umpiring is a human job, and humans make mistakes. But this recent lack of excellence from umpires it getting almost strange. It's also generating a lot of buzz regarding expanding instant replay in baseball. I tweeted my response to that idea:

Unfortunately, the umpires may leave us no choice. It may come to be that instant replay is the lesser of two evils. Sad, really. It's time that Major League Baseball demands more excellence from all umpires.